Elaine Bossik was on the panel of local authors featured at the 13^th Annual Author’s Showcase at the Delray Beach Public Library on Sunday, January 8^th. More than 100 attendees turned out to hear thirteen authors talk about their books. 

Ms Bossik presented an overview of the central plot and theme of The Last Victim. She then discussed where the idea for her novel began—in a writing workshop where she wrote the first chapter of her novel as a vignette, never intending it to be more than a scene. “I was so encouraged by the workshop group to develop this scene into a novel,” Ms Bossik explained, “that I went on to plot the story and develop the characters. But this scene remains the very first chapter of The Last Victim.” 

Following the presentation, Ms Bossik spoke with members of the audience and signed copies of her novel.

Author Elaine Bossik

Author Elaine Bossik presented a Book Talk at the Weisman Delray Community Center in Delray Beach, Florida on Friday, January 6^th.  Ms Bossik discussed some of the plot points,

themes and characters in The Last Victim. “The story deals with obsession, deception, and the consequences of lies,” Ms Bossik explained. She read several dramatic scenes, which intrigued the audience.

A lively question and answer period followed the book talk. There was spontaneous applause from the audience after the presentation.

Ms Bossik signed copies of her novel for attendees who purchased books following the talk.

Author Speach

Author Elaine Bossik

Book Signing

Book Signing 2

Book Signing 3

Book Signing 4

Book Signing 5

While writing The Last Victim, Elaine Bossik often felt like she was watching an enthralling play.

“The characters took on a life of their own. They did things I didn’t plan on,” she explains.

But penning the recently published manuscript wasn’t always easy. There were rewrites, edits, rejection letters and a revised ending to the 263-page book.

“Some people told me the ending was too grim. I reworked it, and I think I made it better,” the Boynton Beach resident said. And, she says proudly, the positive reception and reviews of the book made it all worthwhile.

Read the full article……

The Artist and Author

The cover art for The Last Victim, an original oil painting by artist Eric Bossik, is on exhibit at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. The gallery show, which opened on Friday, October 14, 2011 with a  wine and cheese reception, drew an appreciative crowd from south Florida. The show will continue until November 11th.

Artist Eric Bossik is on the faculty of the Armory Art Center where he teaches a class in realism.

Boynton Beach, FL (PRWEB) September 29, 2011

In the newly published novel, The Last Victim, author Elaine Bossik dramatizes two longstanding and recurring Florida trends: Northerners retiring in the sunshine state and real estate speculation.

“Sophie, the antagonist of The Last Victim, becomes involved in her own real estate frenzy,” says Elaine Bossik.

Ms. Bossik, a former New Yorker who moved to South Florida, recognizes the get-rich-quick real estate frenzy that captivated many Floridians over the past few years and motivated the main character in her novel.

“Florida has long been a retirement destination and a place for real estate speculation,” says Ms. Bossik. “Sophie Rothman, one of the main characters in my novel, follows a similar path, retiring to Florida in the 1960s and gambling on its real estate.”

The novel shows how Sophie Rothman, a mother of three children, becomes obsessed with hoarding money, which she accumulates through her real estate ventures. Her obsession threatens to tear her family apart and leads to a shocking revelation that nearly destroys her daughter’s life.

As far back as the 1920s, Americans from the northern states flocked to Miami and speculated on real estate, driving up prices and precipitating a boom and bust. Frederick Lewis Allen illuminates this history in his book, Only Yesterday.

The next real estate boom that began in the 1950s and lasted until the 1970s has been called “Florida’s Golden Age of Land Scams,” according to J. Bruce Cummings Jr. in A Brief Florida Real Estate History, a research paper. And history repeated itself in the recent Florida real estate frenzy that ended in foreclosure and financial ruin for many homeowners.

“Sophie, the antagonist of The Last Victim, becomes involved in her own real estate frenzy,” says Elaine Bossik. “Her goal as a speculator is to become rich. When confronted by her daughter, Jeanie, about past misdeeds, Sophie uses her wealth to rationalize her actions.”

But, just as the housing boom of the 1920s, the 1950s-1970s, and recent years ended in a tragic bust, so too does Sophie’s relationship with her daughter come to a tragic conclusion.

For northern retirees living in Florida, The Last Victim will prove to be an enlightening novel. It provides a dramatic perspective of the past with an ironic link to present day.

For more information about The Last Victim or to schedule an interview, please contact Elaine Bossik at 561-364-2358 or elainebossik(at)yahoo(dot)com.

About the Author: After receiving BA and MS degrees from Brooklyn College (City University of NY), Elaine Bossik worked as a New York City teacher, an editor, a medical writer, and a staff columnist for Scriptologist.com. Though her professional experience has helped shape her writing, her fascination with people is the inspiration for her fiction. Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, and as a young adult traveling in Israel, she found the rich details for the events that take place in this novel. Visit Elaine Bossik’s Web site at http://www.elainebossik.com for more information.

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Author: Elaine Bossik

Scriptologist.com, an online magazine, spoke with Elaine Bossik about her new novel, The Last Victim.

Scriptologist.com (Q): Where did the idea for The Last Victim come from?

Elaine Bossik (EB): I was in a writing workshop where writers share their writing and offer critiques and suggestions. I wrote what I thought was a short story, but it was really a vignette. The group encouraged me to continue the story and develop the characters. This vignette turned out to be the first chapter of my novel.

Q: Did you plot your entire story before you started writing?

EB: I had to know the beginning, the middle, and the end before I started writing. For me, I have to know my ending so I know where the story is leading. Often things change as the writing progresses. But every action must lead to the ending.

The plot and the characters can’t really be separated. I knew who my characters were—their motivations, their histories. Once you understand your characters, you know what they will do in every situation and what they will say to each other. I like to think of my story as a play, with the characters acting out their lives on the stage of life.

Many things change along the way when I write because the characters have a life of their own. Sometimes they do and say things I didn’t plan on and the story spins in another direction. I always ask: “What if…” For example, what if a character said this or behaved in a certain way I didn’t plan on originally? How would that change the story? That’s what I mean about characters taking on a life of their own.

Q: Your characters are so well developed and seem so real that I have to ask you if you were writing about people you know?

EB: I think every writer writes about real people. Otherwise the characters would seem very wooden. Many of my characters are composites of people I know. I give them the characteristics I want them to have so they can clash with each other. That creates drama. It’s like putting two people in a room who are the exact opposite in personality and then watching what happens.

Q: Why is obsession such a strong theme in your novel?

EB: My antagonist, Sophie Rothman, is driven by obsession. In this case, an obsession to accumulate money for its own sake. Sophie’s obsession is not an ordinary one, it’s twisted, it’s extreme, and it’s what drives all her actions.

Q: Readers are astonished by the strength of this character, Sophie Rothman. Yet she seems so real. How did you create such a character?

EB: We all know people who are obsessed with money, who hoard money, who are stingy. Sophie is a composite of all the people I know like her. Only with Sophie, the obsession is extreme. It’s her tragic flaw. And it makes for wonderful dramatic conflict.

Q: How did you choose the geographic settings for your story?

EB: I grew up in Brooklyn, NY and I wanted my story to begin there because I could describe all the places I was familiar with.

Q: Your story moves to Israel and the Masada excavation in the early 1960s. How were you able to describe this archaeological dig in such precise detail?

EB: I did a great deal of research so that I could be accurate about everything—the discoveries made there, descriptions of the ruins, the camps where the archaeologists lived. Authors who write historical novels do an enormous amount of research so that they can recreate time, place and events. That’s the fun part of writing. You have to imagine that you are in the skin of your characters, living in a certain period of time, in a certain place, doing what your characters do, feeling what they feel.

But I did travel in Israel in the 1960s, so I was familiar with the settings I described in the story. It’s always easier to write about the things you’re familiar with. You can recreate a time and place in much more detail and with more accuracy when you have experienced it.

Q: Your descriptions are so vivid that readers feel they are there at that moment in time. How do you achieve this? Is there some writing formula?

EB: When I describe a setting, I like to use all my senses because when we experience something, all of our senses are stimulated, not just our sight. We hear sounds, smell things, feel things and taste things. If a character is eating a meal, you need to describe how it tastes so the reader will experience it too. These are the details I feel are necessary to recreate reality.

Q: Incest is not an easy theme to write about. Did you intend to write about this?

EB: This theme grew out of the actions of the antagonist who was driven by her obsession, and by the path chosen by the protagonist, Jeanie.

Q: How did you achieve the heightened drama in the climax scene between Sophie and Jeanie, when Sophie learns the identity of Jeanie’s fiancé?

EB: I think the drama is heightened because the reader knows the truth for some time, but the characters don’t know until this climactic scene. So there is the added drama of the reader anticipating this climax and wondering how the characters will react and what will happen to them.

Q: Why was the pursuit of one’s dream such a crucial theme in this novel?

EB: I believe that having a dream is a universal theme. Everyone dreams of doing something, achieving something in life. Dreams drive our actions. And our actions overcome obstacles in our path. Every character in The Last Victim is motivated by a dream. Their dreams drive their actions and precipitate conflicts between them. That’s what creates the drama.