The Last Way Station - Jon Reisfield

Jon Reisfeld's BIO

A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Jon Reisfeld has worked, most of his adult life, as a writer and marketer. He has more than 25 years combined experience in journalism, corporate communications, advertising and marketing.

At 23, Jon became the first writer ever to have a story start on the cover of Baltimore Magazine. (It was a piece about teenage suicide.) He later founded and published Housecalls, a Baltimore-based health-and-fitness magazine. In the mid 90s, Jon served as Director of Marketing and Communications for Duron Paints and Wallcoverings, where he ran the half-billion dollar regional paint company's 12-person in-house advertising agency for several years before returning to his private marketing consulting practice.

Jon's eclectic interests run the gamut from cosmology, chaos theory, technology and sci-fi to social issues, politics, the economy, anthropology, marketing and writing. He began writing fiction in his 40s and enjoys reading, walking, cycling, attending live theatre and "most" new movie openings.

His next major fiction project will be a sci-fi trilogy set on earth and spanning "several hundred years" of human history.

The Last Way Station

Product Description:

ISBN: 978-1-4580-1272-2

Available Now in ebook format at Smashwords, Apple, Amazon (ASIN: B004ZR9KSW), Diesel, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Scrollmotion, Sony. Print release date: 11/15/11.

Overview: 

On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler, one of the most notorious mass-murderers in history, retired to his room in his bunker, 25 feet beneath the old Reich Chancery garden. Above him, the Red Army was encircling Berlin as his dream of a thousand-year Aryan empire lay in ruins.

Hitler placed a glass cyanide capsule between his teeth and pointed a loaded service pistol at his right temple. Then, smugly believing he had both evaded capture and escaped all accountability for his crimes, he bit down and pulled the trigger. He was wrong!

The Last Way Station begins moments after Hitler’s successful suicide, when the Führer finds himself mysteriously transported to a numbingly cold, solitary holding cell in the afterworld. There, he meets his caseworker, a supernatural being tasked with helping him face, and work through, his sins. The caseworker explains that Hitler will remain in solitary confinement indefinitely, as he prepares his soul for eventual return to the material world. The method, Hitler learns, involves seeking enlightenment through physically embodying his victims and then personally reliving the atrocities committed against them in his name.

This speculative, historical fantasy novelette explores Hitler’s psychology, the psychology of evil and asks, ‘What, if anything, constitutes fitting punishment for the ‘super evil?’

Q: What will e-readers like about your book?

Anyone who is NOT a fan of Adolph Hitler should get satisfaction out of seeing the Führer finally brought to justice. I believe they also will like the interaction between Hitler and his caseworker, as well as some of the speculative examination into how his background may have nurtured his anti-semitism. The book explores BIG, nagging questions about organized evil and attempts to address some open questions about Hitler's psyche and his motivation for, among other things, writing a final, vicious attack on the Jews even after he virtually had annihilated them. Finally, the book explores "moral relativism" and the role it plays in facilitating evil acts by those serving under oppressive, amoral regimes such as The Third Reich.

Q: Why did you go indie?

They say Indie publishing is the future, that traditional publishing is now "upside down" and I agree.  I want to be a part of the new movement online to empower writers to take their projects in their own hands, shaping and guiding them into the mainstream. This is an exciting time to be a fiction writer as we can now speak directly to our audiences, with new immediacy, and without having our messages unduly distorted and diluted, by well-meaning intermediaries.

Q: Who are your favorite authors in your genre?;

Elie Wiesel is one of my favorite holocaust writers and Harlan Ellison is one of my favorite fantasy/speculative fiction writers.

Website link;  http://www.jonreisfeld.com