Sunday, July 25, 2010

Mark McGinty - The Cigar Maker


The Cigar Maker

By Mark McGinty

The Cigar City. The year is 1898. Young Cuban rebel Salvador Ortiz and his family have escaped the hardship of war-torn Cuba, but the union halls, cigar factories, and dark alleys of Tampa are filled with violence and vendetta. Salvador must defy constant labor strife and deadly corruption in a one-industry town known for backroom cockfights, street thugs, late-night abductions and mass production of the world’s best hand-rolled stogies. An ideological battle for control of the cigar industry tests Salvador’s self-respect and love of hard work as he fights to abandon his rambunctious, outlaw past and lead his proud Cuban family into a colorful immigrant society. His wish for a peaceful life as a husband, a father, and a man of dignity is threatened by a lawless underworld and a cultural conflict with a dangerous, bloody history. Based on true events.

The book has been getting great reviews, which you can read here: http://www.thecigarmaker.net/reviews.php

BIOGRAPHY
Mark Carlos McGinty is a descendant of Cuban cigar makers whose work has appeared in Cigar City Magazine and La Gaceta. He grew up on ropa vieja, Cuban sandwiches, cafĂ© con leche, and fresh-squeezed OJ from his grandfather’s tree in West Tampa. His favorite cigar is the Arturo Fuente Flor Fina 8-5-8. Mark’s first novel Elvis and the Blue Moon Conspiracy (Beaver’s Pond Press, 2003) won an Eric Hoffer Book Award Honorable Mention for General Fiction. He graduated from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida and received his Master’s degree from Xavier University in Cincinnati. Mark lives in Minneapolis with his wife and daughter.

Mark is writing a third novel, a historical fiction set in Japan at the end of World War 2 titled Unit 731, about a Japanese scientist who tries to escape with a state secret but is pursued by a state policeman through Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

WEBSITE


OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Elvis and the Blue Moon Conspiracy
2003 Beaver's Pond Press

Excerpts of "The Cigar Maker" have been published in Cigar City Magazine and La Gaceta (the nation's oldest trilingual newspaper!)

PUBLISHER
Seventh Avenue Productions