Search

Feel like someone’s watching? You’re probably right. Your anonymity is an illusion. The trend toward constant surveillance is disturbing. Supporters often argue, “If you're obeying the law, you have nothing to fear.” But is that really true? While many refuse to acknowledge the possibility of an worldwide Orwellian nightmare, others know that creeping totalitarianism thrives best when it moves quietly in the shadows. In the 1970’s, the idea of a national identification card was floated, which led to great protest. We no longer need a national identity card: it already exists. It’s your phone. In his prophetic The Naked Citizen, Philip Dossick points an ominous warning finger at how our civil rights are at risk and need to be protected against the abuses of illicit surveillance.

From the Foreword: Her name is Janina Beckstein. Born in 1935 and, as of this writing, 90 years old, she witnessed the horrors of World War II, the destruction of her Jewish community, the separation of families, and the brutal occupation of her homeland. When I first noticed her, she was sitting alone at a chess table in Washington Square Park. It was a crisp autumn afternoon, the park bustling with life: students from NYU, street musicians, children’s laughter mingling with the bark of dogs and the honking of horns. In front of her was a chessboard, its pieces arranged with precision. Her eyes were scanning the park with both curiosity and detachment. No opponent sat across from her. Was she waiting for someone?" I was struck at first by her beauty. Something about her reminded me of the actress Lilia Skala, a family friend, long gone. Lilia Skala was a luminous presence exuding elegance and great intelligence. She had won an Oscar for her performance in Lilies of the Field. My 84-year-old self stepped forward and, with much hesitation, asked, 'Could I join you for a game?' “Of course,” she said. “Sit. Sit.” Her accent was Polish, and that, coupled with her advancing age and the sadness in her eyes, instantly conveyed a life shaped by wars and heartbreak. How well I knew that look. So do millions of others. But who was she? Her memories were vivid. She spoke of a childhood in Kraków Poland, of the war that tore her world apart, of the resilience it demanded, and of the long years of rebuilding. She shared tales of love and hate, of pity and terror, of faith in humanity, the joys of motherhood, all woven together with a perspective born of wisdom. This is not a biography, nor is it a history. It is just a record of one unique voice and a chance encounter with someone special in Washington Square Park. In other words, a typical New York story.

Mark Twain In Seattle, a daring and utterly charming novella, describes something incredible that takes place between a University of Washington undergraduate, and a sick old man. Late one evening, Taz, a student, helps a homeless man who has fallen in the street to his feet. When asked, the man gives his name as Samuel Clemens: the Samuel Clemens, or Mark Twain. Philip Dossick weaves a fantastical story, yet behind its magical realism lies a mountain of wit that takes flight and stays aloft until its inevitable end. This one’s for the ages.

Writer Philip Dossick is in Mexico promoting a book. Young New Yorkers Gina and Frank approach him with a bizarre story. They were climbing the ladder of success in Manhattan. Things couldn't be better. Then overnight, they found themselves in a nightmare world of doctors, treacherous friends, and a corrupt legal system. As everything fell apart around them, wrong became right as they fought for their lives before the full force of the justice system came crashing down on them. With the unique voice that has made Dossick one of the world's most accomplished writers, Gina and Frank is an absorbing tale of love, betrayal, and the sometimes-desperate choices we are forced to make in order to survive.

From the Preface to The Deposition: ADONIS TIGOURIS was 91 years of age when he proposed to Sophie Maiden. Miss Maiden was 28. One third of all the elevators in the world are designed and manufactured by Adonis Tigouris’ company, Adonis Elevator Company, a division of Adonis Heavy Industries. On March 3, 2009, Adonis Tigouris slipped and fell in his shower, and broke his left hip. After a stay at Massachusetts General Hospital, he required extensive rehabilitation, and a private nurse. Sophie Maiden was that nurse. He was still able to run Adonis Heavy Industries from the bedroom of his Penthouse overlooking Commonwealth Avenue, in Boston. Within 90 days of his return home from the hospital, he had become engaged to young Sophie Maiden, then married to her; been found wandering the streets of Boston naked and psychotic, died soon after, and her share of his multi-billion dollar fortune had become the subject of intense litigation. The following are the verbatim transcripts and audio recordings of key depositions in that dispute. They have never been published before. —Philip Dossick

Three Novellas by Philip Dossick The Deposition Mark Twain in Seattle Gina and Frank: A Brief Conversation With Strangers

*Slab City U.S.A. is a Philip Dossick short story about the true meaning of friendship.

Vincent Van Gogh needs no introduction. An iconoclast to the last, an artist who challenged tradition, overturned outmoded customs, a man who relished being a bomb-thrower and expert provocateur, he was without question one of the greatest artists of all time. Madness And Magic by American author Philip Dossick contains thirty of Van Gogh’s wittiest, most profound works, harvested from a lifetime of his most radically creative years. The author’s choices range from the renowned and expected, to the obscure and disturbing. The reader may find the lean precision of Madness And Magic an astute marriage of art and poetry. Each of the thirty paintings is paired with a short original poem, a format that breathes new life into the stale, over-populated coffee-table book universe of seldom opened volumes. Turn a page. Van Gogh’s trees are not simply trees. They are strange living creatures bursting with color and touched by solar flare. The author wonders, why did Van Gogh visualize them this way? What was it about them that enraptured him so? Why did this nature lover become mystically attuned to these leafy petaled creatures? Attuned to libidinous young women? Attuned to scrofulous individuals cursed by old age and infirmity? Human nature is far too complex, and the personality of an artistic genius too enigmatic for a biographer to supply easy explanations. Instead, in Madness And Magic, Dossick has chosen to chart the course Van Gogh’s genius took, and speculate, through selection and poetry, why some of the upheavals and catastrophes in his life might have occurred along the lines they did.

ABOUT THE NOVEL AMELIA AND HOWARD- Secrets of the Diary What if everything you thought you knew about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance was a carefully crafted illusion? In the glittering twilight of the 1930s, Amelia Earhart soared above the clouds and into legend; but beneath the champagne sparkle and newspaper headlines, America's most celebrated aviatrix was drowning. Hidden behind the public facade was a woman haunted by secrets: a failing marriage, a devastating struggle with alcohol, and crippling doubts about her own abilities. As her world unraveled, she found solace in the arms of the secretive tycoon and aviator Howard Hughes. Their passionate affair offered salvation—until an unexpected pregnancy forced an impossible choice in an unforgiving era. Through tear-stained pages, Earhart grapples with her love for Hughes, her guilt over a painful estrangement from her father, and her fierce devotion to her mother and sister. The journals also capture Earhart’s encounters with some of the most iconic figures of her time—Charles A. Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and screen siren Jean Harlow—offering an intimate portrait of a woman both shaped by and defying the constraints of her era. Together with Hughes, she devised history's most daring disappearance, transforming July 2, 1937 from a tragic mystery into a masterful escape to start a new life far from fame’s prying eyes. From glittering 1930's parties to hidden sanctuaries in Mexico and Switzerland, this is the story of how Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes built a life—and a family—on their own terms. Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes: The greatest love story you never heard about.

Philip Dossick returns with a magnificent new historical study illustrating the humanity, science, and savagery of the Aztec nation. Aztecs: Epoch of Social Revolution takes us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again. Drawn from original research, Aztecs starkly illuminates their magnificent achievements - along with the social injustice and corrupting nature of power following their conquest. Whatever vague and misty memories the rest of the world may have of the Aztecs, they were past masters of war; science; agriculture; religion; art; money; family; ritual sacrifice; law, and female subjugation. One of the most brilliant and contradictory people the world has ever known, all seen here through vivid snapshots in time.