"TALES OF THE CITY ... MOROCCO STYLE"
Hi! My name is Steven Stanley, and I'm an avid reader of fiction (never without a book I'm reading and another in my car CD player).
My novel Moroccan Roll was inspired by the four years I spent in Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Amazon.com "Top Reviewer" Amos Lassen writes about Moroccan Roll, "Every once in a while I come across a book that I know will not satisfy me with just one reading for whatever reason. Steven Stanley's Moroccan Roll is one such book and because I enjoyed it so much, I want to add it to my list of books that I read over and over again."
Michael Landman-Karny at BarnesAndNoble.com has called it a "frothy, intelligent, satirical, lyrical, diabolical, and tragically and hilariously comedic gay lit/chick lit book(which) brings to mind Armistead Maupin's tales of 1970s San Francisco."
Before you imagine me out in the desert helping nomads build houses, I was a “white collar” TEFL volunteer, teaching in a Moroccan high school. (For the uninitiated, TEFL means Teaching English as a Foreign Language.) It was a fascinating four years, living a multilingual life (English, French, Arabic), working among French and Moroccan fellow teachers, and discovering the many worlds that make up the country of Morocco.
When I returned to the States, I sat down and wrote the first draft of Moroccan Roll. I wanted to put everything I knew about life in Morocco onto paper, so that I’d never forget the experience. In doing so, I created the dozen or so main characters that make Moroccan Roll roll. Now, years later, Moroccan Roll is an actual, honest-to-goodness published novel, and one I’m proud to have written.
ABOUT MOROCCAN ROLL:
(Available for order from Amazon.com and from BarnesAndNoble.com)
In the tradition of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, Steven Stanley's enthralling debut novel takes a large and fascinating cast of characters (American, French, and Moroccan, straight and gay) and transports them, and the reader, to an intriguing and exotic time and locale-fabled Morocco in the 1970s. Just as San Francisco became more than merely a setting for Tales of the City, so do Morocco's people, customs, traditions, and even its food and drink become an integral part of Moroccan Roll, a novel destined to engross the reader from its first page to its explosive climax.
CLAUDETTE-She lived a life of glamor and adventure, until a very public love affair nearly destroyed it all.
DAVE-Morocco offered escape from a closeted boyfriend, until he fell for a young-and straight-Moroccan student.
JANNA-Drugs seemed the only way for her to forget the Moroccan who had broken her heart.
JEAN-RICHARD—Countless affairs with beautiful women were the only way to obliterate the past.
MARCIE-She left Wisconsin to spread her wings, only to fall desperately in love with Jean-Richard, the town's most infamous playboy.
KEVIN-Coming to Morocco meant a second chance at love with another man after tragedy had robbed him of his first.
MICHELE--She vowed she would keep the man she loved from becoming yet another of Claudette's playthings.
KACEM—He was the handsome young Moroccan both women and men wanted…but could not have.
CeCe Cline raves about Moroccan Roll @ BarnesAndNoble.com "In Moroccan Roll, Author Steven Stanley delicately describes life in 1970s Morocco, seen through the eyes of several diverse school teachers. As we fall in love with each of the characters, Stanley also brilliantly teaches us about the cultures in Morocco. The last 200 pages are particularly fascinating and unexpected. Stanley's inspiring tale teaches us that although life may not turn out the way we expect, it really is about what we make it. We're looking forward to Stanley's next novel."
You can see a whole bunch of pictures taken while I was living in Morocco at:
www.myspace.com/moroccanrollthenovel
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