The Three Sisters #Excerpt by Bryan Taylor #AmReading #Humor

“Why’d you become a nun?” asked Mr. Ram.

“Well, when I was a kid, my mother got me to enjoy all the music she and my father had listened to when they were kids, you know, Big Band, Glenn Miller, and she’d get me to watch all the movies she used to go see with my father when they were growing up. I really liked the movies and music from back then. They had a certain optimism, a joie de vivre, almost a naivety about life, all of which it seems like we’ve lost since then. While I was in college, there was Watergate and Viet Nam and the CIA and racial problems, and Berkeley wasn’t exactly a hotbed of contentment. If people in other countries liked our movies and music, they hated our government, and everyone around me at college was either cynical or distrustful or, or…it just all seemed so different from the movies and music my mother had shown me. It seemed to me that there had to be a better way to live life than being distrustful and cynical about everyone and everything, and besides, I thought someone had to carry the torch of American optimism, especially when everyone else was trying to put it out. And I decided that person would be me.

“I decided that what I wanted to do was to go abroad and show others that America was still a country that wanted to help people. I had thought about going into the Peace Corps, but I didn’t want to be connected with the government because if I worked for them, I was afraid that the people in the country I was going to wouldn’t trust me. So instead I became a Maryknoll nun, purposing to go down to Central America to help others and show them what America could be. My parents were Catholic, and I had met a couple of Maryknoll nuns in California. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was in the convent. My parents didn’t like the idea at first since they were Methodist, but after a while they accepted my decision.” Sister Carla had turned away from the table and was studying the floor beneath her intensely.

“What’s she doing?” asked Mrs. Ram.

“She’s trying to judge how far it is to the floor. Penguins are terribly nearsighted because their eyes are adapted to seeing underwater. So it takes them a while to judge distances. They’re quite good jumpers though. Some can jump better than they can walk.”

“So what happened in the convent?”

“Being there was quite an adjustment those first few months. Though I had taken on the idealism of the thirties, I had not taken on the Hayes Commission’s morality. I had always had boys chasing after me, but I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. You know, men are funny because it’s so easy to manipulate them. I took cues from the movies and from friends and learned to act coy and shy, or aggressive and spunky as the situation demanded. Most of them never realized how I was controlling them. They were so happy to be with me, they didn’t seem to care. What happened at the end of the date was their main concern. Not that I didn’t enjoy it either. In fact, I probably enjoyed it more than they did, but I also made sure the evening itself was just as fun.” Sister Carla jumped off the chair and started to explore the Ram’s house at her leisure.

“Anyway, the convent changed my dating habits drastically, but I adjusted quickly enough. A lot of the nuns I met there were nice, optimistic, and even idealistic, though often for different reasons from my own. Nuns are not the simplistic Debbie Reynolds types that movies make them out to be. Most of them are probably more vivacious and thoughtful than the average person. You know, they say clothes make the person, and it’s the same with nuns. Most people only see the black and white outer habits nuns wear before the world without ever thinking about what nuns wear under their habits. But to some of the more liberal nuns, their nightgowns were their pride and joy. Why, I myself had a veritable rainbow of brilliant gowns to sleep in. Under a nun’s habit lies her true nature, not in it.

“But that’s beside the point. In due time I was down in Central America, and I must admit, it turned out to be something quite different from what I had imagined. I was sent down there to work with Sister Carla, that’s whom I named our penguin after. She had already been down there for two years, and she believed in helping people’s bodies as well as their souls and went out of her way to do so. She made sure she had done everything she could for the people she was working with, and she never gave up. Whether someone woke her up in the middle of the night seeking refuge, or came to her at the church, she went out of her way to help them. It wasn’t always easy either. We were taken advantage of many times and we knew it, but we stuck by our jobs nevertheless.

“Unfortunately, Sister Carla did too good of a job,” continued Regina more solemnly. “She helped everyone regardless of whom they were and that was her fatal mistake. The government of the country we were in was rather brutal and the leftists often did their best to be as inhuman as the people they were trying to overthrow. There were rumors about some of the things that happened to people the government didn’t like. They told me about the ‘flying nun’ incidents. Government soldiers would take some nun who wouldn’t cooperate with them up in a helicopter, fly over the ocean, and then push her out the window and tell her to fly. None did. Both sides had told Sister Carla to stay in the Church where she belonged, but she and I ignored them. I guess we just figured it wouldn’t happen to us, or if it did, it was God’s will.” Regina paused.

“It was a Wednesday when it happened. I was walking home when some of the people in the village ran up to me and told me some men had taken Sister Carla away. They didn’t know who the men were or what side they were on, but she was gone. Two days later someone found her body. She had been shot twice. As soon as I heard, I went to see her body to make sure her remains were taken care of.

“I don’t know. The whole situation was just too real. Sister Carla would have wanted me to stay on, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. My heart wasn’t in it. I stayed down there a while and read the Bible every day. But everything seemed so wrong. If Paul wasn’t preaching at me, the priests were laying down rules and regulations for me. I knew how to live without some man telling me what to do. And the men in the Bible were bigger chauvinists than the men down in Central America. Just read the Bible and see how the Jews treated women back in Old Testament times. The Israelites killed all the men in battle, but raped the women they captured or made them their mistresses. Their women were just furniture. And then I realized Israel was just like Honduras or some other Center American country. Every few years there was a coup, an assassination, a war, or something like that. Nothing had changed in three thousand years.

“After Sister Carla got killed, I tried reading the Bible for solace, but everywhere I read there was nothing but death and destruction from man and from God. You read in one place where the Israelites kill 500,000 men in a few days. In another place an angel kills 185,000 men. I guess God would justify that like we justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but what I never could understand was Childermas, the Slaughter of the Innocents. God sent an angel to Joseph so he would save His Son Jesus, but He let all the other children die. Why didn’t God tell the other fathers that Herod’s men were coming to massacre their children? Why did He save His Son and not the other children? I never could understand that. Of course now I’m an agnostic, so I think it’s all a bunch of nonsense, but I never could reconcile Childermas.

Nuns just want to have fun! But when three former Catholic nuns have too much fun and get in trouble with the law, they become nuns on the run.

Driving back to Washington D.C. where they work at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Parts, the three sisters are arrested in Tennessee. After defeating the local deputy in strip poker, they escape from jail, and are pursued by the zealous Detective Schmuck Hole, who has personally offered a $10,000 reward for their capture on The 700 Club. Little do they know that when the three sisters visit the Washington Monument, their lives will change forever.

Set in 1979, The Three Sisters is a sacrilegious satire that skewers not only organized religion, but the government, the media, intellectuals, corporate greed and every other part of the establishment. Maybe not the greatest story ever told, but possibly the funniest.

Buy @ Amazon

Genre – Humor, Satire, Catholicism, Politics

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Bryan Taylor on Facebook

Website www.threesistersnovel.com

How the English Establishment Framed Stephen Ward by @StephenWardBook #Scandal

FBI director, J.Edgar Hoover, was convinced that British society was riddled with whores, pimps, sex maniacs and Soviet agents. His conviction was given a boost on Sunday, 16th June, when an article by British solicitor, Michael Eddowes, appeared in the Journal-American. In it Eddowes told of his meeting with Yevgeny Ivanov during the Cuban missile crisis. Eddowes described Ivanov as highly aggressive and full of blustering threats to wipe out England and to drop an atomic bomb in the sea 60 miles off New York. According to Eddowes, Hoover immediately ‘instructed’ him to make further enquiries into the security aspects and report back to him.

Washington was now buzzing with as many rumours as had swept London during the height of the scandal, so what happened next was not entirely a surprise. The White House became involved. The most likely explanation for President Kennedy’s sudden interest in the affair is that his brother, Attorney-General Robert Kennedy, told him of the long report from Hoover.

There were then both political and personal reasons for the President’s interest. One was that the scandal could provide Kennedy’s opponents in Congress with ammunition to attack his plans for a multi-nation NATO nuclear force. If Britain was so leaky, why should the US share it’s defence secrets? Another was a call in the Washington News for Kennedy to cancel his scheduled visit to London because it would provide moral support for the foundering Government of Harold Macmillan. ‘We can think of no better time for an American President to stay as far as possible away from England.’

And a third reason, a personal one, was that given Hoover’s animosity for the Kennedy family, the President became concerned that Hoover would somehow use the scandal against him….The only feasible reason for this widespread fascination is that all these people feared that the President of the United States was about to be dragged into the scandal, not on a political level, but on a sexual one…..The reason was that Robert Kennedy was worried that Christine or Mandy, or even both girls, might have slept with the President during their recent visit to the United States and he needed to know for certain so that he could protect the President from the scandal that would follow if the girls blabbed. It would have been simpler for Robert Kennedy to ask his brother if he had slept with either of the girls. But, as we now know, John F. Kennedy’s sexual appetite was so prodigious and so indiscriminate that he would not have been able to remember.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Politics, Espionage, Scandal

Rating – PG-16

More details about the author

Connect with Caroline Kennedy on Facebook & Twitter

Bryan Taylor & The Three Sisters Discuss Their Favorite Movies About Nuns #satire #politics

To celebrate the release of the book, The Three Sisters, I asked each of the three sisters to tell me what were their three favorite movies with nuns in them were, and then which movie they jointly chose as their favorite “nun” movie of all time.

Regina Grant: 

Since I like classic Hollywood films, I chose The Singing Nun (1966), Come to the Stable (1949), and Heaven Knows Mr. Allison (1957).  The Singing Nun is my favorite of the three.  It’s lots of fun in a mindless way, and Debbie Reynolds as engaging as ever.  You can’t help but like the movie, even if it is pure fiction. The nun it was based upon, Soeur Sourire, committed suicide 20 years after the film was made, after a life of financial difficulties. Come to the Stable was written by Clare Booth Luce who also wrote The Women.  It’s an engaging film in which some irreligious people help the sisters build a children’s hospital showing the spiritual and secular can work together. Heaven Knows Mr. Allison is set during World War II on an island in the Pacific, and is about a castaway marine who falls for a stranded nun. They work together to avoid the Japanese when they arrive on the island.  It is quite an engaging drama.

Theodora Suora: 

I prefer the more intellectually challenging films, so I chose Doubt (2008), Black Narcissus (1947) and Dead Man Walking (1995).  Doubt is my favorite of the three.  The first time you see it, you are inclined to view it from Sister Aloysius Beauvier’s point of view, but if you watch it from Father Brendan Flynn’s point of view, you’ll see his view makes just as much sense as hers, whence the doubt.  Black Narcissus is about a community of nuns who try to establish a civilized community in the Himalayas in the former bordello of a Rajah. It is wonderfully photographed and each of the characters is finely drawn. Dead Man Walking takes on the difficult subject of the death penalty and handles it with poignancy. Both Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn give wonderful performances.

Coito Gott: 

Since Theodora always tells me what a rebel I am, I didn’t want to disappoint her, and I chose Viridiana (1961), La Religieuse (1966) and Lilies of the Field (1963).  Viridiana is Bunuel’s take on what happens when an idealistic nuns meets the real world.  With some interesting twists and turns, she ends up helping the poor in ways she never would have if she had stayed in the convent. La Religieuse is based upon Diderot’s novel, perhaps a bit modernized, perhaps a bit slow, but nicely done. Anna Karina is wonderful as always.  Lilies of the Field is fun as you watch the sisters manipulate Sidney Poitier to get him to help them build a new chapel. After all, nuns are irresistible, aren’t they?

And which movie did we all choose as the best movie about nuns?  

The Trouble With Angels, of course.  There is a certain charm to this movie that make it difficult to resist despite its silliness. It’s based upon the novel, Life with Mother Superior by Jane Trahey, and has enough rebellion and antics in it to keep you entertained. We’re sure anyone who went through Catholic School could identify with the two “angels” in the film.  The sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows is fun, but doesn’t work as well.  You can tell it was more of a creation of Hollywood to profit from the popularity of the first movie, but it is an interesting reflection of its time.

Of course, there are many others that didn’t make our list, but deserve an honorable mention. We decided not to include any nunsploitation films or movies that are only tangentially related to nuns.  The ones that didn’t quite make our list included Sister Act (more Whoopi Goldberg than nuns), The Bells of St. Mary’s (too saccharine), The Sound of Music (more about Nazis than nuns), Change of Habit (Elvis meets Mary Tyler Moore), The Nun’s Story (Audrey Hepburn is enjoyable, but the movie is slow), Agnes of God (good cast, too somber), Nasty Habits (Nuns meet Watergate, but lousy), The White Sister (entertaining but silent), The Devils (Ken Russell meets nuns), and of course, The Flying Nun TV Show (not a movie).

The one book which would make a really, really fabulous movie someday would be The Three Sisters, but if you can’t wait for the movie to come out, be sure and read the book.

Nuns just want to have fun! But when three former Catholic nuns have too much fun and get in trouble with the law, they become nuns on the run.

Driving back to Washington D.C. where they work at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Parts, the three sisters are arrested in Tennessee. After defeating the local deputy in strip poker, they escape from jail, and are pursued by the zealous Detective Schmuck Hole, who has personally offered a $10,000 reward for their capture on The 700 Club. Little do they know that when the three sisters visit the Washington Monument, their lives will change forever.

Set in 1979, The Three Sisters is a sacrilegious satire that skewers not only organized religion, but the government, the media, intellectuals, corporate greed and every other part of the establishment. Maybe not the greatest story ever told, but possibly the funniest.

Buy @ Amazon

Genre – Humor, Satire, Catholicism, Politics

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Bryan Taylor on Facebook

Website www.threesistersnovel.com

#Author Caroline Kennedy & Her Favourite Movies @stephenwardbook #scandal #politics #mustread

WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE FICTION AUTHOR?

Currently my favourite author is Rohan Mistry whose towering novels about India are so vivid, so descriptive and so visual that I can totally immerse myself and believe I am there experiencing everything he is writing about. I end up knowing the characters so well and empathizing with them. I feel their pain, their anguish, their sorrow, their joys and their afflictions. There is so much going on in his books, like a vast kaleidoscope of sounds, smells, colours, life and death. I would love to write such epic novels – fiction, so true in every minute detail, that it seems like non-fiction.

WHERE DO YOU GET INSPIRATION FROM?

Since I write mostly non-fiction I get my inspiration from life in its many shapes and forms. I observe people. I listen to conversations. I like to blend into the background so people don’t notice me. That way I can be like a video camera, overhearing, watching, recording mental notes in my head and then scribbling them down later. Not, of course, in any sinister way but simply as a fascinated observer. I love the process. I learn so much from watching and listening to others.

IS YOUR FAMILY SUPPORTIVE?

Yes, I have been very fortunate. My son is a producer and is encouraging me to write so, perhaps, one day he can produce something I’ve written. My two daughters often tell me they are proud of me. One of my nephews is very positive about my current book. One sister did complain, “Oh no, you’re not writing THAT story again!” I think her main problem with this particular book is that she is staunchly Conservative and it shows up the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan as a vindictive government bent on the destruction of one innocent man to cover up their own misdeeds.

WHAT ELSE DO YOU DO TO MAKE MONEY FROM OTHER THAN WRITING?

I have actually been “retired” for the past ten years while living in Costa Rica. But while living there I have been very active in the local English Language Theatre. I have been President of the theatre for 3 years and have directed 3 plays and acted in several more. I also worked with indigenous Bribri groups in the Talamanca mountains of Costa Rica, putting their lives and legends into dramatic form. Before that I was a humanitarian aid worker, working with refugees with disabilities in Bosnia and Croatia during the war and then in Azerbaijan. I loved that work.

LOCATION & LIFE EXPERIENCES – WHERE DID YOU GROW UP AND WHERE DO YOU NOW LIVE?

I grew up between Surrey in southern England and the Highlands in the far north of Scotland. I would say I had a very idyllic childhood in both places. But I had itchy feet from a very early age and couldn’t wait until I left school at 16 to adventure abroad by myself. I lived in New York for three years and worked as the producer of an all-night Talk radio programme on 1010 WINS New York. Then I travelled alone around the world, taking the Trans-Siberian railway across Russia and Siberia. I lived in the Philippines for 3 years, working as TV and pring journalist, before heading back to the UK. I currently spend my time between Los Angeles, Costa Rica, the UK and Newfoundland. Travelling every 3 months seems to calm my restless spirit.

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?

What scares me the most is the American love of guns and the callous attitude of the NRA towards background checks, weapons in the home and massacres of innocent people, including children. What scares me is their intransigence to any sort of gun control and their only solution to children being gunned down in schools is handing out yet more guns to teachers. This scenario is very scary to me.

DO YOU PLAN TO PUBLISH MORE BOOKS?

No, I have no plans at present to write another book, other than my memoirs, written more for my family and friends than for general readership. I won’t categorically state I will never write another book. Simply that I am concentrating right now on completing a screenplay and that will take me a few more months. So I can’t really predict beyond that what irresistible subject, like Stephen Ward, might arise that I would be eager to dedicate another four years of my life to.

WHAT IS HARDEST – GETTING PUBLISHED, WRITING OR MARKETING?

Until independent publishing took off I would definitely say the hardest task was getting published. It seemed to be a chicken and egg situation. No agent, no publisher. No publisher, no agent. I was extremely fortunate in that I had a successful author who became so excited by my research when I showed it to him that he immediately called his publisher to tell him he must publish the book. The publisher, Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape, needed no persuasion. He became hooked and was 100% supportive and certain it would become a best-seller. I hadn’t actually written a word, I had no agent and yet here I was talking to a top publisher who was more excited than I was! Now, these days, with the growth of independent publishing, it is easy to publish a book. The hard part is marketing it. I think one needs to be very tech savvy and familiar with all the social networks to make a success of it. Unfortunately I am neither.

IF YOU COULD HAVE A DINNER PARTY AND INVITE ANYONE – DEAD OR ALIVE – WHO WOULD YOU INVITE AND WHY?

For the living guests I would invite Rachel Maddow because I love politics and I would dearly love to have been a political journalist. And Maddow is simply the best and brightest of all of them all today.

I would invite Imelda Marcos (former First Lady of the Philippines) because I have written scathingly about her numerous times in the past. I feel I owe her at least a decent dinner for never having had me thrown in gaol or had me assassinated as was the fate of many of her other enemies. And, let’s face it she is very entertaining.

I would invite Eddie Izzard because he has the funniest one-liners in the business and would poke fun at Imelda and keep us in hysterics the whole night and, thus, prevent the conversation from ever becoming too serious.

For guests who have died, I would love to have met the writer, adventurist, diplomat, great English eccentric and my secret heroine, Gertrude Bell who felt equally at home “sitting in a palace with Kings as she did squatting with nomads in a tent in the desert.” I feel equally at ease in all these situations too so would be fascinated to meet her and listen to her and exchange notes.

My next guest would be Oscar Wilde, also known for his one-liners, his acerbic wit and his irreverence. It would be delightful to hear his views on the current marriage equality laws.

And my final guest would have to be, of course, Stephen Ward. I have often wondered how he would react to someone who has taken five years out of her life to prove to the world that he was innocent of all charges and who is still working towards having his conviction overturned.

DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS HOW WRITERS CAN RELAX?

I would advise not to put yourself under too much pressure.  Unless you are writing to a deadline, don’t feel you have to finish the article or the book until you are ready to do so. Too many times in the past I have forced myself to finish an article for no other reason than I want to move on to the next project. Just remember the next project can always wait. Write at a pace that suits you. Be gentle, kind and respectful to yourself.

WHAT COLOUR REPRESENTS YOUR PERSONALITY THE MOST?

Green is my colour. It is the colour of the environment in which I live. It is a restful and reassuring colour. I love trees. I love open meadows. I love savannahs stretching out into the horizon. I love the Spring when suddenly, after the drab months of winter, everything becomes green and hopeful, heralding the long, hot summer. Green is definitely my colour.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MEAL?

My favourite meal has to be a hot bowl of vegetable curry with steamed rice followed by organic 75% dark chocolate. I’m not sure that they would really go together, I’ve never actually tried the combination. But, individually, they are my favourite foods so surely that would mean together they would make my favourite meal?

HAVE YOU MET ANYONE IN THE INDUSTRY WHO HAS REALLY HELPED YOU?

David Yallop, the best-selling author, helped me enormously at the start. I owe him a lot. My co-author, Phillip Knightley, also helped me by showing how all the disparate threads of my research could be woven together in chronological order to create one cohesive narrative. And, currently, my nephew, the movie actor, Cary Elwes, is acting as Executive Producer for my screenplay and, when it is completed, will introduce me to people who can help me find financing for it.

WHAT MOVIE DO YOU LOVE TO WATCH?

There are a few movies that I could watch many times and not get bored. “Whale Rider” is one. “Princess Bride” (starring my nephew, Cary Elwes) is another. “Muriel’s Wedding” is always cringeworthy but wonderfully nostalgic of the 80s. And I can never get enough of Tennessee Williams – “The Glass Menagerie”, “Suddenly Last Summer” and  “A Streetcar Named Desire” are some of my all-time favourites. His characters and situations are so over the top but, at the same time, so very believable. And, since I am a great Tolkien fan, I love the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

IF YOU COULD DO ANY JOB IN THE WORLD WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

I always thought I wanted to be a politician. But, in the last few years, I have gone off that idea. Truly what I would like to be is Head of the UNHCR. I have loved living and working among refugees during the past two decades. I would be happy to work for the rest of my life trying to alleviate their suffering and improve their living conditions.

"How the English Establishment Framed Stephen Ward" is a major expose of a government cover-up that has lasted half a century. It is a powerful story of sexual compulsion, political malice and ultimate betrayal. A number-one bestseller when it came out in 1987 under its original title, "An Affair of State", the book reveals never-before-heard testimony that has been uncovered by the authors in the years since the scandal broke. 

Using startling new evidence, including Ward’s own unpublished memoirs and hundreds of interviews with many who, conscience-stricken, have now spoken out for the first time, this important account rips through a half-century cover-up in order to show exactly why the government, the police forces, the Judiciary and the security forces decided to frame Stephen Ward. Stephen Ward is now the subject of an upcoming Andrew Lloyd-Weber musical and this book offers a wider perspective on its complex, central character as well as a broader insight into one of the greatest scandals of the past 100 years. As the authors’ research reveals, Ward’s “trial of the century” was caused by an unprecedented corruption of justice and political malice which resulted in an innocent man becoming a scapegoat for those who could not bear to lose power. 

This is an epic tale of sex, lies, and governmental abuse whose aftermath almost brought down the government and shook the American, British, and Soviet espionage worlds to their core. With its surprising revelations and meticulous research, Ward’s complete story can finally be told.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Politics, Espionage, Scandal

Rating – PG-16

More details about the author

Connect with Caroline Kennedy on Facebook & Twitter