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Scoring Bertram Wiggly, Exclusively on Kindle!

 

Click Here to OrderWhen Bertram Wiggly retired as an appliance actuary – his job was to calculate the precise life expectancy of ice boxes and electric stoves so the warranty expires one day before they implode – he thinks Medville is the perfect place to spend his twilight years. A lovely place with a town square circled by brick-cobbled streets and quaint shops with bright red and white awnings. Beyond that are charming cottages with white picket fences and deep front porches on which the newspaper boy plops The Daily Bugle each day with a perfect overhead lob, announcing the delivery with a ding-ding from the bell on his blue bicycle. While it would be a lie to say the weather is ideal, the inclement weather Medville does have is invariably scenic. Rain, when it falls, comes down hard and is so exhilarating, that many times townsfolk deliberately go out and walk in it, lifting their faces as if the pelting drops were sunshine. In winter, snow piles the ground and fence rails like cream-cheese icing, not a muddy or slushy patch to be seen. Fall is breathtaking. Spring, a delight.

But then, the city votes to rezone itself for musicals.

A mysterious conductor, Sam, moves in along with a complete orchestra, which has a remarkable capacity for invisibility. Now, music from unseen instruments fills the air, and the formerly sane townspeople are apt to break into song at the drop of a note. What’s worse, it becomes apparent there is a plot afoot, a love story in which Bertram Wiggly, against his will, has been cast as the laughable villain. And everything he does to resist only seems to fulfill his role.

Will Bertram defy Sam the Conductor and keep his beloved Mary from the clutches of the loathsome, clean-jawed Jim Hansom?

In the tradition of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Scoring Bertram Wiggly is a hilarious send-up of old-fashioned Broadway musicals and a delightful meta-fictional farce.

Review

Man Martin is one of my gods. Right up there with Hermes and Poseidon – James Iredell author of Prose, Poems, a Novel


Man Martin is no longer just a talent to watch, he’s an author to celebrate. Loudly. And now. -  Michael Griffith, Bibliophilia

Days of the Endless Corvette, Winner of 2008 Georgia Author of the Year Award for First Novel

 

Days of the Endless Corvette, winner of 2008 GAYA Award for First Novel

From Publishers Weekly

Martin's first novel leisurely unfolds in the manner of Southern tall tales and oral tradition, imparting magic and meaning into smalltown 1970s Georgia. Earl Mulvaney, a clueless but kindhearted high school dropout whose facility as a mechanic is nearly supernatural, is in love with the bookish girl next door, Ellen Raley. Their short-lived romance is interrupted when Ellen discovers she's pregnant with her previous beau's child. Ellen marries Troy, the lovable football player who subsequently becomes Earl's best friend, and Earl goes to work for a used car dealer whose ideas about the evolution of cars makes him the ideal benefactor for Earl's plan to build a Corvette out of leftover parts. Though Earl and Ellen remain in love, they content themselves with memories, daydreams and secret notes passed via books checked out from the library. Told from the perspective of the town librarian (whose reliability is questionable—he is convinced he once saw a brontosaurus), the novel has a folkloric patina of exaggeration that renders the characters' quirks and foibles endearing rather than forced... Martin's debut novel is a grand if meandering charmer.
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Review

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Man Martin, a wholly original writer whose voice will linger in your mind. This is a wonderful novel--a tenderly shaded love story and a deliciously intimate portrait of human beings seeking answers to all the hard questions. Days of the Endless Corvette casts a spell that is memorable, painful, and sweet. -- Mark Childress, author of One Mississippi and Crazy in Alabama

Man Martin's tall tale stretches truth until it squeaks and gives up small moments of such perfect beauty that more than once I found myself grinning through tears. It's smart and funny and quirky and deeply imagined, and at its heart is a gorgeous faith in the potency of human connections. Martin crafts a rich feast from love's leftovers and smallest pieces, delivering a wonderful book, wonderful, in every sense of the word. -- Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia

More than enough comedy, pathos, tenderness, excitement and 'pure D' magic left over to build half a dozen lesser novels. -- Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park