A Tourist Visa

by Paul Vitols

Overview

Welcome to the Latvia Hotel, Riga’s only high-rise and the pinnacle of three-star luxury in this Baltic republic. The year is 1982, and here young Canadian traveler Curtis Jansons discovers that even a small serving of Soviet hospitality comes with a heaping side order of bureaucracy. But this time, that side order is served by Galina, a young, pretty Intourist officer—and when he asks her for a date, she gives him a chance to glimpse more deeply life behind the Iron Curtain.

By turns funny and moving, A Tourist Visa blends autobiography with artful storytelling, and reminds us that we’re all travelers, looking for both love and meaning. And as we strive against forces larger than ourselves, we discover that our ultimate journey is a solitary one.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940154131558
Publisher:	Paul Vitols
Publication date:	04/05/2017
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	728 KB

About the Author

Paul Vitols ("Vee-tolls"--Latvian for "willow") was born in 1959 in Vancouver, Canada, to two refugees who met at an encyclopedia salesmen's Christmas dinner. He showed an early obsession with letters and words, which manifested in, among other things, the defacing of some of his father's books. In school he turned to filmmaking, and competed in provincial and national student film festivals. Nonetheless, the career he imagined for himself was in space science. But by age 20 he realized that, for better or worse, he was a writer, and he dropped out of university. Paul's love of film led him into scriptwriting, and in 1992 he, with writing partner Warren Easton, broke through with a children's TV series called "The Odyssey," about a comatose 11-year-old boy trapped in an alternative world run by children as a police state. The show, known for its edge and humor, received many international awards and was broadcast in more than 50 countries. At the same time, Paul was also at work on a novel, a literary thriller called "Truth of the Python," in which a hypnotherapist inadvertently regresses a neurotic young client to a past life as the Greek philosopher Pythagoras. Paul, after some close calls in the world of print publishing, finally brought it out as an e-book in 2011. His current project is The Age of Pisces, an epic of the birth of Christianity, which he is calling a "literary series"--the e-book equivalent of a TV series. Episode 1, "The Mission," will appear in 2014. Along the way, Paul has also practiced journalism, copywriting, editing, and technical writing. Indeed, to keep writing and creating he has also begged and borrowed, but not stolen--yet. He lives with his wife Kim in North Vancouver, British Columbia.