{"id":7077,"date":"2016-01-19T10:19:40","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T14:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?p=7077"},"modified":"2022-03-23T11:04:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T15:04:47","slug":"mozinanovel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/mozinanovel\/","title":{"rendered":"CONTRARY MOTION Hits the Right Note"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_7078\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7078\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ozinaArt.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7078\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7078\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ozinaArt.jpg\" alt=\"Andy Mozina\" width=\"200\" height=\"161\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7078\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andy Mozina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On a musical instrument, contrary motion refers to a melodic motion in which one series of notes rises in pitch while opposing notes descend. In his debut novel, Contrary Motion, English professor <strong>Andy Mozina<\/strong> moves his 38-year-old character, Matthew Grzbc, in opposite directions in most every aspect of his life.<\/p>\n<p>As a harpist living in Chicago, Matthew hopes to land a chair position in a symphony orchestra\u2014but his every day has him playing on demand to dying patients at a hospice and to the sounds of chewing at hotel brunches.<\/p>\n<p>As a just-divorced man, he dates a woman with whom he suffers erectile dysfunction\u2014even while he can\u2019t stop lusting for his ex-wife who is about to become engaged to another man. He\u2019s a devoted and attentive father to his six-year-old daughter\u2014but the girl teeters on the verge of a breakdown after witnessing her father \u201cin flagrante delicto\u201d with her mother while Mom\u2019s boyfriend is out of the house. Adding drama, Matthew\u2019s father suffers a fatal heart attack while listening to a relaxing meditation CD\u2014leaving his son questioning his sanity as well as his mortality. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ontrary-Motion-cover.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7079\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-7079 size-full\" src=\"\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ontrary-Motion-cover.jpg\" alt=\"Contrary Motion by Andy Mozina\" width=\"275\" height=\"413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ontrary-Motion-cover.jpg 275w, https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ontrary-Motion-cover-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When a longed-for audition for a harpist in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra opens career possibilities for Matthew (if only his harp would stop buzzing and twanging), he is pulled once again in opposing directions. To audition or not to audition? And, should he be offered the chair, to move or not to move away from his girlfriend, his ex-wife, his daughter, his life in Chicago?<\/p>\n<p>Matthew\u2019s saving grace, the glue to keep his life from splitting down the middle with all that contrary motion, is his sense of humor. It\u2019s hard not to root for the guy between chuckles. He is as perfectly imperfect as are we all on those days when we take an honest look in the mirror. He is riddled with anxiety when most of his fears are never realized. By end of novel, all that anxiety becomes a tad exhausting\u2014-get it right, Matt! Do it, dude!\u2014-and then he does that, too, hitting the perfect note, humanly well.<\/p>\n<p>Andy Mozina has taught English at Kalamazoo College since 1999. He is the author of the short story collections, <em>The Women Were Leaving the Men<\/em>, which won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and <em>Quality Snacks<\/em>, a finalist for the Flannery O\u2019Connor Prize. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, and he has received special citations in <em>Best American Short Stories<\/em>, Pushcart Prize, and <em>New Stories from the Midwest<\/em>. Mozina is also the author of a book of literary criticism called, <em>Joseph Conrad and the Art of Sacrifice<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a musical instrument, contrary motion refers to a melodic motion in which one series of notes rises in pitch while opposing notes descend. In his debut novel, Contrary Motion, English professor Andy Mozina moves his 38-year-old character, Matthew Grzbc, in opposite directions in most every aspect of his life. As a harpist living in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[233],"tags":[42,54,39],"post_formats":[],"class_list":["post-7077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","tag-arts","tag-english","tag-faculty"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>CONTRARY MOTION Hits the Right Note - News and Events<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On a musical instrument, contrary motion refers to a melodic motion in which one series of notes rises in pitch while opposing notes descend. 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Staff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/category\/faculty-staff\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Faculty &amp; Staff<\/a>","tags_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/arts\/\" rel=\"tag\">arts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/english\/\" rel=\"tag\">English<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/faculty\/\" rel=\"tag\">faculty<\/a>","social_share_info":"<a data-share=\"facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/mozinanovel\/\" class=\"pl-facebook-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-facebook-f\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/mozinanovel\/\" class=\"pl-twiiter-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-twitter\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"linkedin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/mozinanovel\/\" class=\"pl-linkedin-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-linkedin-in\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a>","wordExcerpt_info":"<figure id=\"attachment_7078\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7078\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ozinaArt.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7078\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7078\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ozinaArt.jpg\" alt=\"Andy Mozina\" width=\"200\" height=\"161\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7078\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andy Mozina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On a musical instrument, contrary motion refers to a melodic motion in which one series of notes rises in pitch while opposing notes descend. In his debut novel, Contrary Motion, English professor <strong>Andy Mozina<\/strong> moves his 38-year-old character, Matthew Grzbc, in opposite directions in most every aspect of his life.<\/p>\n<p>As a harpist living in Chicago, Matthew hopes to land a chair position in a symphony orchestra\u2014but his every day has him playing on demand to dying patients at a hospice and to the sounds of chewing at hotel brunches.<\/p>\n<p>As a just-divorced man, he dates a woman with whom he suffers erectile dysfunction\u2014even while he can\u2019t stop lusting for his ex-wife who is about to become engaged to another man. He\u2019s a devoted and attentive father to his six-year-old daughter\u2014but the girl teeters on the verge of a breakdown after witnessing her father \u201cin flagrante delicto\u201d with her mother while Mom\u2019s boyfriend is out of the house. Adding drama, Matthew\u2019s father suffers a fatal heart attack while listening to a relaxing meditation CD\u2014leaving his son questioning his sanity as well as his mortality. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ontrary-Motion-cover.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7079\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright wp-image-7079 size-full\" src=\"\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2016\/01\/ontrary-Motion-cover.jpg\" alt=\"Contrary Motion by Andy Mozina\" width=\"275\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When a longed-for audition for a harpist in the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra opens career possibilities for Matthew (if only his harp would stop buzzing and twanging), he is pulled once again in opposing directions. To audition or not to audition? And, should he be offered the chair, to move or not to move away from his girlfriend, his ex-wife, his daughter, his life in Chicago?<\/p>\n<p>Matthew\u2019s saving grace, the glue to keep his life from splitting down the middle with all that contrary motion, is his sense of humor. It\u2019s hard not to root for the guy between chuckles. He is as perfectly imperfect as are we all on those days when we take an honest look in the mirror. He is riddled with anxiety when most of his fears are never realized. By end of novel, all that anxiety becomes a tad exhausting\u2014-get it right, Matt! Do it, dude!\u2014-and then he does that, too, hitting the perfect note, humanly well.<\/p>\n<p>Andy Mozina has taught English at Kalamazoo College since 1999. He is the author of the short story collections, <em>The Women Were Leaving the Men<\/em>, which won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and <em>Quality Snacks<\/em>, a finalist for the Flannery O\u2019Connor Prize. His fiction has appeared in numerous magazines, and he has received special citations in <em>Best American Short Stories<\/em>, Pushcart Prize, and <em>New Stories from the Midwest<\/em>. Mozina is also the author of a book of literary criticism called, <em>Joseph Conrad and the Art of Sacrifice<\/em>.<\/p>\n","comment_info":"No Comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7077"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10043,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7077\/revisions\/10043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7077"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_formats?post=7077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}