DEFENESTRATION DAY
C. opens up his window, takes a deep breath, and screams as loud as he can. He hears the response of so many others screaming back enigmatic phrases, mysterious calls and bellows. The history of Defenestration Day has only become more complicated with time. Stories are told, truths blur, embellishments become reality. It is a holiday of screaming out windows, of throwing words away to never be used again. The holiday has no religion or political stance or nationality. It emerged spontaneously and spread rapidly. It is most likely the only lingual holiday celebrated in the history of the world. Because only in a society where everyone already talks over one another would we decide to create a holiday devoted to doing just that.
"Hertzberg gives us a sobering view of love and loss in a dystopian future where people exorcise their demons from apartment windows. Defenestration Day is a beautifully written account of the power our words—whether consciously or not—can have on others and ourselves." - Kolin Jordan, 7Vientos Press
“Defenestration Day feels like a partially macabre yet deeply personal account of a trip though purpose, pain and abject relationships. C. bangs around society, charming and offending and hiding in dark places but making noise to render the shadows he tucks away in useless. All the character read like reflections or memories of people we've all met. Every conversation, no matter if the characters are ensconced in a bedroom or drinking apprehensively at a gallery, feels like script in a film. The book has many cinematic qualities, even in its avant- garde, time jumping form, it still maintains its visceral quality due to the rich minutia of its cast. It was enjoyable sitting behind the driver seat of C., even though the narrative was the driver, I still felt a bizarre level of control, like the words, thoughts, feelings and decisions of C. were still somehow mine, which is haunting.” - Adam Homer Lawson, author of Animals on Buses
"A restless, cautionary tale on the labor of consciousness and the perils of overthinking ones experience. Hertzberg anxiously shows how a writer, once in love with language, becomes tangled in its intricacies and broken by the ways it falls short." - Sarah Jane Quillin, fields magazine