Duet - Tapa dura

"Duet" is a wildly comic story of a beautiful and talented young woman in her 20's living in New York City and her misadventures as she navigates men's desires and fears. When most women look into a mirror, they see flaws in their body. Some of those flaws can end up being the very essence of what some see as a woman's true beauty. Duet, a talented, sensitive, gorgeous young woman, has an unusual anatomy one that might overexcite one man, but terrify another. She has to live with this sexual uniqueness and not see herself as a freak. Men are drawn to Duet. One night she meets Oskar, a handsome young man who is successful, sexy, intelligent, witty and seems able to handle her design. They fall in love, even though he has an aloofness about him that seems a bit odd. It turns out he has secrets of his own. Oskar is also a wild card and turns out to be connected to Duet in more ways than one. Duet is a romp full of vibrant, unexpected characters doing unexpected things, as they love, move toward and away from each other. It's also a metaphor for how we must also risk love, no matter what bodies were given us, and no matter what unusual choices of the heart we make.

Gay Walley is the author of two prior novels. Strings Attached (University Press of Mississippi, 1999) was a finalist for the Pirates Alley/Faulkner Award, the Writer's Voice Capricorn Award, and Paris Book Festival Award. The Erotic Fire of the Unattainable (IML Publications, 2007) is being reissued by Skyhorse Publishing in 2014. It was a finalist for Paris Book Festival Award. A film based on the book is currently under production from a script written by Ms. Walley. She is also a Zoetrope finalist for her story, The Naked Maja. Her play Love, Genius and a Walk opened at the 2013 Midtown Festival in New York and was nominated for six awards including best playwright. It is scheduled to be produced Off-Broadway. Kurt Haber's literary career has ranged from social commentator, memoirist, diarist, essayist, librettist, political pundit, and fantasist. At various times Kurt has been a modest sabre fencer, tournament polo-player, and frequent but unranked tennis player.