Cliff Simon's Paris Nights

Cliff Simon’s memoir Paris Nights, tells the story of the beginnings of Simon’s journey toward stardom. His big stepping stone and the basis of this book, is his year in Paris as a dancer at the Moulin Rouge.

The book starts off with Simon receiving a call from his friend Gavin about the Moulin Rouge needing a new dancer. Gavin asks Simon if he would like to fill the position, and at the drop of a hat, Simon sells his car for a one way ticket to Paris — a bold move to make, and just one of the many risks you’ll see Simon take throughout the book.

Simon arrives in Paris looking forward to his new job only to find out he still has to audition — something Gavin failed to mention — and if he doesn’t make it, well then he just gave up all he had in South Africa for nothing.

Obviously Simon makes the cut, but before we get to the part in the story where he auditions, the book takes us back to Simon’s childhood.

Simon grew up in a whites only neighborhood in South Africa during the apartheid — a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party, the governing party from 1948 through 1994. Eventually as the war between the National Party and the African National Congress (ANC) intensified, his family decided to move to London while Simon was in highschool.

In London, Simon focused a majority of his time training to become an Olympic swimmer, with the goal of making it to the 1984 Olympics. Although he says he could’ve easily made it to the Olympics, something was telling him he needed to go back to South Africa, even if that meant being drafted into their military.

And so Simon joined the military, which although hellish, he found that it was what he needed to put him in his place after living such a privileged life. It not only gave him a newfound perspective of what it meant to truly struggle, it also gave him the strength that would help him kick off his dancing career.

Flash forward to the audition and we begin our journey alongside Simon in his year at the Moulin Rouge, a journey that widened Simon’s outlook of the world as he is exposed to things he never really encountered in South Africa: homosexuality, interracial couples, mobsters and freedom.

The book is not only a good read for dancers and actors, but also for those interested in historical and cultural perspectives, seeing as the most interesting part of this book is his transition from a narrow-minded South Africa to a very liberal France, which opened many doors for him. Although the title may suggest that this is solely based on his career at Moulin Rouge, there is much more the book explores that makes it a highly suggestable read.

To purchase a copy of Paris Nights click on the link below:

https://www.amazon.com/Paris-Nights-Year-Moulin-Rouge-ebook/dp/B01ESBCHWA?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect

Burt Weissbourd's Minos

Minos is the final piece of Burt Weissbourd’s Corey Logan Trilogy. The trilogy revolves around a no-nonsense female character, Corey Logan, who was once imprisoned for a crime she did not commit and later, she is working to help street kids get their lives back on track.

While the two previous books explore the world of mafias, con artists, runaways and life on the streets; Minos takes a sharp turn as it explores the ideas and beliefs found in the neo-pagan faith, Hellenism.

Hellenism is a religious movement whose followers set out to revive or reconstruct ancient Greek religious practices. The central character of Minos is a teenage girl named Sara, who has begun performing ancient Greek rituals with hopes of summoning the Greek god Theseus, a legendary hero of Athens. Sara senses an imminent danger, and for reasons she cannot explain — at least not in a language that others can comprehend — she needs Theseus to stop a beast that is about to embark on a murderous rampage.  

The novel begins with Sara accidentally starting a fire at school while performing a ritual in the bathroom. She is immediately suspended until further notice and sent to receive professional help. Lucky for Sara, Dr. Abe Stein — who is a prominent character in the previous books — doesn’t write her off as crazy and prescribe her a bunch of meds. Instead, Dr. Stein makes an effort to try and enter into her world and make sense of it.

Here, in the United States, the word “pagan” has a negative connotation. People often connect paganism with dark magic, satanists and sinners. Therefore, when Hellenism came to the United State during the 1990s, it was not taken kindly to. As we see with Sara’s character, they — who believe in a religion that is not one of the “main world” religions — are not taken seriously and are oftentimes discriminated against.

Sara’s belief in Greek gods has her living as an outcast, and as she tries to desperately warn others that there is an impending danger, she is not taken seriously by anyone but Abe. It isn’t until some of her predictions begin to come true that others start to get on board.

While the novel serves to account for pagan faiths, it also tackles the problem of when a person’s belief consumes them. Although Sarah may seem a bit intense, this is not referring to her. Yes, she refers to her friends using Greek god names, but to her, her friends are just the modern-day versions of the gods. The murderer, on the other hand, seems to truly believe that he is a reincarnation of Minos — hence the name of the novel — and like Minos, he must sacrifice young lives to please the Cretan Bull, his master.

With Sara’s character and the murderer, the novel does a great job depicting how religion can create conflict. That is not to say that it sets out to antagonize religion. What this novel does is it shows readers how people can be misunderstood because of their faith, and how someone who is psychologically unstable can use their beliefs to justify their actions, thus creating more stigma towards their claimed religion. The way in which the novel weaves together Greek mythology with the present day — tackling ideas we don’t usually think about — makes it a unique and interesting read.

To read Minos you may purchase it from the link below: http://www.amazon.com/Minos-Corey-Thriller-Burt-Weissbourd/dp/1942600402