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• The Bulgarian Training Manual - 2024 CLASH Books ,

• Ruth Bonapace website - https://www.ruthbonapace.com/

  Meet Ruth Bonapace, a Brooklyn-born author with a BA and MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook University. Ruth has been a journalist, essayist, mortgage banker, real estate agent, laundromat manager and, of course, waitress. Not in that order.

  The Bulgarian Training Manual, published by Clash Books, is her debut novel. Ruth's fascination with the world of athletes began while covering professional sports for The Associated Press and continued through her own experiences at the gym. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including The Southampton Review, The Saturday Evening Post, Thin Air Magazine, Hippocampus Magazine, Newsday, The New York Times, and The Newark Star-Ledger. She was an American Writer's Review finalist for 2022 and 2023.

  Ruth, a.k.a. Mom, has three children and lives in New Jersey. Do not ask how she finds time to write.

• The Nerd Daily - https://thenerddaily.com/ruth-bonapace-the-bulgarian-training-manual-interview/

  Q&A: Ruth Bonapace, Author of ‘The Bulgarian Training Manual’
  Elise Dumpleton·Writers Corner·May 30, 2024·3 min read

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  We chat with author Ruth Bonapace about The Bulgarian Training Manual, which is a comic novel that tells the story of Cristina Acqualina Bontempi (a.k.a. Tina) in her quest to find her true parents and jeans that fit.

  Hi, Ruth! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
  Sure. I’m a Type-A person, happiest when I’m busy with lots of projects: writing, going to the gym, cleaning out closets. When I need to clear my head, I get back to nature, hike in the woods, dig in my garden. It’s amazing how tiny twigs can be so calming! I’ve got three kids, live in New Jersey and we have a labradoodle named Teddy who naps next to me when I write.

  When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
  I can’t remember not reading: books, cereal box ingredients, anything. In seventh grade, I wound up in detention for cutting class to work on the school newspaper. But I never thought I could write a whole book until about 10 years ago when I went back to school for an MFA. It was so scary, like Alice going through the rabbit hole, yet we lived to tell the tale.

  Your debut novel, The Bulgarian Training Manual, is out now. If you could only describe it in six words, what would they be?
  Barbie on Steroids. Chicklit on Acid.

  What can readers expect?
  You’ll be tossed into a strange eco-system of the familiar and the fantastical. Picture Dorothy in The Wizard Oz, headstrong, struggling with grievances and dreams unfulfilled. That’s my narrator Tina, but with a fondness for four-letter words. Through circumstances almost as weird as a flying house, she ends up in Bulgaria, makes new friends, accepts a daunting mission, and is transformed by the journey. But Tina is funnier and wilder than Dorothy, more Snooki from Jersey Shore than Kansas schoolgirl.

  Where did the inspiration for The Bulgarian Training Manual come from?
  I started going the gym daily during a low point in my life, needing someplace to escape and get the endorphins going. Something I could control when life seemed out of control. I discovered this strange world of muscle magazines and guys talking about esoteric “supplements.” A trainer showed me photocopied pages from an incredibly complicated workout that supposedly originated in Bulgaria. I never forgot that, and knew I’d use it somehow in my writing.

  Some of the funniest parts of the book, aside from wise-cracking Tina, is its takedown of the wellness and fitness industries. Why is that so ripe for satire?
  In its worst forms, it promises an easy secret to health, longevity, good looks, great body and so on. Instagram and TikTock are filled with gurus and ever-new fad diets: micro, macro, keto, grapefruits, algae, legal and illegal drugs. So why not throw in a little magical realism, and have fun with the craziness of it all?

  Was there any part of the research you particularly enjoyed?
  I loved reading the texts of the wrestlers and powerlifters from the late 1890s, early 1900s, before the proliferation of gyms or even television. It was a fascinating world where muscular women were ostracized as freaks and relegated to the circus. I managed to sneak this into my novel while, I hope, preserving its raucous nature.

  See also

  Q&A: Neal Shusterman, Author of ‘Gleanings’
  While the book is a hilarious romp, it’s also at times tender story of family and self-discovery. Why?
  I didn’t want just a haha funny book or a 300-page snark. I wanted to show Tina’s hidden fears, the tender wounds and doubts we all carry. One of my favorite scenes is when she sits down on a wet stoop and the water soaks through her jeans. It’s one of those moments when you feel overwhelmed by sadness. You think it can’t get any worse, then your dog chews up your new expensive shoes – or you sit down on a wet stoop.

  Anything else we should know?
  There are nerds in my book. Literally. They arrive in the second half and, without giving away the story, help save the day.

  What’s next for you?
  I have a few books percolating, all very different. One is a dark, historic novel, possibly YA, that grew from my research for The Bulgarian Training Manual. And the other is based in the same neighborhood, but with different characters.

• Write or Die - https://writeordiemag.com/author-interviews/ruth-bonapace

  Ruth Bonapace: On Creating a Unique Voice, the Gym as an Escape, and Balancing Tenderness and Humor
  Jun 13
  Written By Drew Buxton
  Over the past few years, I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the worlds of strength sports and bodybuilding. I watch every documentary I can find on the subject, and it’s something that continually inspires my writing. When I heard that one of my favorite publishers, CLASH Books, was publishing The Bulgarian Training Manual, described in blurbs as a comic wild ride that smartly satirizes the world of fitness and wellness, I was instantly intrigued. I reached out to Ruth, and we connected over our mutual fascination with strongmen and strongwomen.

  She sent me a copy, and I enjoyed it from the first page. We’re thrown headfirst into the strange ecosystem of the gym with all its peculiarities. Aside from a biting comedy, The Bulgarian Training Manual is also a deeply researched look at rich tradition with roots in the days of vaudeville carnivals. Ruth was kind enough to talk with me about her debut novel.

  Drew Buxton: The thing that jumps out immediately with this book is the voice. In his blurb, Mark Leyner wrote that the narrator Tina speaks in a “homemade lingo that crackles like a cheek of cinnamon chewing gum.” I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe it. These short punchy fragments create a rhythm that draws in the reader. How did this voice come about? What influences is it drawn from?

  Ruth Bonapace: It’s an urban working-class voice I’ve picked up over much of my life from different sources. Having been raised in blue-collar Queens and Long Island neighborhoods, it’s a familiar patois that I mostly lost, assuming I had it at all, after college and travel. However, I still hear it among some friends, including one from New Jersey who says “she don’t” even though he is college educated and another from pre-gentrified Brooklyn who refers to almost anything as “shit” instead of “stuff.”

  For the cadence, I’ve long been fascinated by the clipped, sarcastic, and intimate voice of longtime New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams, who often used one- or two-word sentences. I just looked her up to see if she’s still alive and, yes, she is, at 93. She ended all her columns with “Only in New York, kids, only in New York.” It’s the assertive voice on a city stoop, or the noir characters in those vintage radio shows like Johnny Dollar and films of the ’30s and ’40s, where the characters, especially the women, either had heavy New York accents and said things like “Hey buster, whaddya want?” or they had affected pseudo-upper-class diction. I wanted a tough-girl, in-your-face, baring-my-guts, entre nous kind of voice that was also vulnerable and filled with self-doubt. It’s not easy to sustain, however. There were days when I’d start writing and the narrator would sound more like me. On those days, I’d have to stop and try again another day.

  This is slightly off topic but speaking of old movies, one of my favorites is The Petrified Forest from 1936 with Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard. These three characters personify a distinct linguistic pattern—Bogey and his cronies, of course, do the classic gangster talk; Leslie Howard is the dreamy suffering poet, and Bette Davis, while having an accent that is completely at odds with her redneck town, is nonetheless full of spunk and spitfire in her direct language and take-no-prisoners attitude. Like my narrator Tina might have been in another era.

  I love the assertiveness of the women in the pre-1950s movies.

  DB: It’s not surprising the voice has so many different influences. I definitely caught some of the old noir influence, and Tina feels like a throwback in a way that really works.

  She lives in a basement apartment in New Jersey and works a dead-end job that she can’t stand. The gym is an escape from the mundanity of her life. Her harsh reality is contrasted with the supernatural powers of the training manual and ghosts of bodybuilding past. What is it about the fitness world that captures Tina’s imagination? As a writer, what makes it a great vehicle to move from realism into the speculative?

  RB: The gym is an escape for many people. You can socialize there—or not. You can “be somebody” at the gym—and you see this with a lot of the guys, especially, who train hard and preen in the mirror—when outside you’ve got an ordinary life. Like the images in Bruce Springsteen’s song “Out in the Street.” At night, the anonymous factory worker says, “When I’m out in the street, I walk the way I want to walk,” etc. I’ve escaped to the gym myself during hard times, like when I was in the middle of a divorce, and I discovered how jumping on the bike or the treadmill was a release and learning how to lift weights within a few months resulted in an easy-to-see change in my body definition. It’s a way to control something in your life when everything seems out of control. So, I think that would appeal to Tina.

  As for moving into the speculative—I mean, look at the contestants at bodybuilding shows all over the country. Those are bodies that most of us wouldn’t attain, even with steroids. Looks like something from a Marvel movie. It’s a bizarre transformation and an equally bizarre regimen that these people follow—men and women. Like the old cliché about truth being stranger than fiction. It’s all already here.

  DB: That’s a really interesting point. I’ve known people who live for that notoriety in the gym. They’re much more invested in their bodies and the social scene of the gym than conventional ideas of success. I’ve also definitely had times where lifting weights was a respite. The times I’ve been really into fitness have been the times my life isn’t going especially well.

  This book provides a comedic look at the wellness and fitness industry. It moves into the absurd with insatiable demand for gluten-free communion wafers, hydrating serum contraband, and guru adjuncts at DeVry University. What is it about the current culture of “wellness” and vanity that is so ripe for satire? What do you think the allure of it is that draws in so many followers?

  RB: Many of us want an edge, that “secret sauce” that can elevate some part of us to a new level. Lose weight. Gain muscle. Improve memory. Have more energy. Instagram and TikTok are filled with endless weight loss and exercise gurus, before and after pictures: obese to slender, flabby to firm. Pop into any GNC store and check out the shelves. Many of the supplements mentioned in my book are real—creatine, thiamine and, yes, horny goat weed, which is sort of a plant-based Viagra. Apart from the many esoteric legal and illicit substances used to gain athletic strength and muscle, we have endless “fat-burning” supplements and new pharmaceuticals like Ozempic.

  The absurd in fiction is not too far from the absurd in life. If we had the grapefruit diet and the Subway diet where you eat nothing but Subway sandwiches—I am not making this up—then hell, it’s not a big step to find a “secret” communion wafer craze. Actually, I’d been mulling over what might be an unlikely supplement when I went into a church in Paris that had a wild array of realistic looking statues including St. Catherine of Siena. When I read that she lived off communion for years, I looked up more info and not only did I have my obscure supplement but another character of sorts for the book. Same with the information about how to make anabolic steroids. By the way, the first steroids in America were introduced by a U.S. Olympic team doctor, John “Montana Jack” Ziegler, who gave it to his athletes back in the ’50s. Supposedly he found out about it while chit chatting over drinks with a Russian physicist. So when Big Steve talks about Eastern Bloc spies trading workout secrets, that’s not too far from reality. Ziegler was a bodybuilder, too. As you can probably tell, I did a lot of research while writing this book. And then had fun with it.

  As for the professor from DeVry—the bodybuilding world is very cultish, and I’ve discovered books, articles and nutritional supplements touted by people with important-sounding letters after their names from obscure institutions.

  DB: It’s wild to think someone could live off communion! I think the search for an edge is a natural thing for humans. Sometimes I think athletic commissions should stop trying to stop the use of performance-enhancing drugs because some are going to find a way to beat the system one way or another. Of course, there would be some big downsides as well…

  Something we learn early on is that Tina grew up without parents. While this book is a raucous look at the world of extreme fitness, it is also a tender story of family and self-discovery. How did you go about striking a balance between these two elements?

  RB: I’m glad this came through. I rewrote the book many times as I discovered new elements or ideas. After early drafts, I wanted to dive a little deeper into Tina, her deepest fears, desires, disappointments. The tender wounds and doubts we carry. I didn’t want her to be a one-dimensional cartoon. But I also didn’t want to lose the momentum or the humor.

  One of my favorite scenes is when she sits down on the wet stoop and the water soaks through her jeans. It’s one of those moments when you—the universal “we”—feel overwhelmed by both real and existential grief and sadness. You think it can’t get any worse and then you get into a fender bender, or your dog chews up your new expensive shoes, or you sit down on a soaking wet stoop. Of course, I can’t just leave her there, being the writer and master of her universe. That little voice of reason—in this case she channels Schwarzenegger—tells her to “stop whining.” And she kind of snaps back into perspective.

  As for her parents, I chose to make it ambiguous as to whether she was given a false narrative by others or, possibly, by herself, to justify her abandonment. Technically, we can write a novel with no ancestors. But I wanted to include her grandmother, who is based on my own maternal grandmother who had a sad life and would drink beer and watch boxing and wrestling on TV. I really loved her, and I knew from an early age that other kids’ grandmas didn’t spend Sunday afternoons rooting for people bouncing around in a ring.

  From there, I thought it would be fun to have all these whispers about her parentage. After all, why did everyone want her version of The Bulgarian Training Manual?

  When I was about two-thirds through the novel, and after reading Joseph Campbell’s books, especially The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I recognized parallels between my book and The Wizard of Oz . Like Dorothy, Tina starts off fearful, filled with grievances, then a bizarre event takes her to a far-off land where she finds companions who happen to be archetypes, then, poof, comes back changed. Dorothy learned she didn’t need the ruby slippers, that she had the power to go home all along—and when the scarecrow demands to know why she wasn’t told from the start, Glinda replies something like “she wouldn’t have believed me. She needed to find out for herself.” Bingo. I then had the answer that had been eluding me in finishing the book. Tina starts out a hot mess, and slowly realizes that she is stronger than she knows, smarter than she believed. And she has to find out for herself. This leads to a massive shift.

  The book also has elements of romance—but purposely not a romcom, which in my opinion comprises too much of today’s popular fiction. Tina, in defensive mode, is highly suspicious of Cowboy/Vladimir and keeps him at arm’s length. Spoiler alert! LOL. She gradually warms up to him and at the end, is completely flummoxed when he walks toward her as she is giving a speech.

  One more thing—when I was thinking about my grandmother and the pro wrestlers, and the fictional origins of The Bulgarian Training Manual, I did some research into pioneers of the sport. Along the way, someone recommended the Leslie Fiedler book Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self. I was skeptical at first, but I found it moving, especially about how many of these athletes, particularly the strong, muscular women, were considered freaks in their day and relegated to circus sideshows. Thomas Edison in 1901 produced a short film of a beautiful strong woman…stripping on a trapeze! That woman was Laverie Vallee, aka Charmion. I substituted a photo of her on the interior title page instead of Hackenschmidt, which you have in the galley. Most people still regard the pro bodybuilders as freaks with their extreme physiques, and the acceptance of strong women with muscle—everyday women and tennis players like Venus Williams, basketball stars like Brittney Griner, etc.—is a relatively recent phenomenon. Tina comes to embody not only an improved mindset, but an understanding that being a strong woman is her birthright and, by extension, every woman’s.

  Ruth Bonapace has an MFA from Stony Brook University. Her work has appeared in various publications including The Southampton Review, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, and American Writer’s Review. Ruth’s debut novel The Bulgarian Training Manual is scheduled for publication in June 2024 by Clash Books. Her interest in the habits of athletes began while she was covering pro sports at The Associated Press for two years, and continued through her experiences at the gym.

Bonapace, Ruth THE BULGARIAN TRAINING MANUAL Clash Books (Fiction Fiction) $18.95 6, 4 ISBN: 9781960988102

In Bonapace's satirical novel, a young woman embarks on a strange journey from New Jersey to Bulgaria and back again.

Cristina Acqualina "Tina" Bontempi lives in a flood-prone, illegally rented basement apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, where she barely scrapes by as a realtor. She spends her time smoking cannabis and working out with her fitness-obsessed friend-with-benefits, Steve. Her whole life changes after he gives her a copy ofThe Bulgarian Training Manual, a physical and mental fitness guide "kept secret by the Communists." Tina dabbles in some of the manual's self-help schemes, including a communion-wafer diet (popularized by a 14th-century nun who "helped unify Italy and brought the Pope back to Rome, all the while eating her way across Europe with communion wafers") and "Hypno-Tan" sessions, which involve a tanning bed and hypnotism. Eventually, she realizes that, despite the "secret" nature of the manual, a surprising number of people at her gym are aware of its existence. She becomes captivated by its teachings, and she finally makes an impulsive decision to fly to Bulgaria to help "restore the Ancient Gym to its place of honor." After she arrives, she meets a host of quirky characters, including a woman known as Baba Yaga who immediately offers her a communion wafer ("'Eat,' she says, 'but never on the same day as candy corn. It is ancient Bulgarian way'") and Mohawk, another fitness fanatic who worships the manual's teachings--and who believes that vital pages are missing from it. It doesn't take long before some people, including Baba Yaga, suspect that Tina may hold the key to unlocking the guide's full potential.

As this summary indicates, Bonapace is clearly uninterested in constructing a narrative based in reality. Instead, she presents a tale of a determined protagonist on a weird, winding path toward self-fulfillment, while skewering everything from diet culture and religion to beauty trends and gym bros. Tina's tough New Jersey attitude sometimes edges a bit too close to parody, but as she apparently bumbles her way toward enlightenment, her brash, unapologetic air makes the story of her hotheaded journey to Bulgaria worth reading. The dialogue is about as realistic as it can be, considering the utterly absurd topics that the characters discuss. But it's Tina's narration that proves to be the most entertaining element, as when she ruminates on whyRomeo and Juliethas endured: "It said right in the prologue that the play would take two hours. That's a lot of useful information. Most books don't do that Think about it. Shakespeare is still around after all these years for a reason." Over the course of the novel, there are plenty of moments that will make readers laugh out loud, including the manual's guide to various bodybuilder meal plans, including a feeding tube diet, a baby food diet, and a virtual diet (in which one simply pretends to eat). It's a wild ride that's most fun when readers put their assumptions aside.

An absurd romp through modern culture with a disarmingly appealing protagonist.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Bonapace, Ruth: THE BULGARIAN TRAINING MANUAL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A802865101/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6edf30c2. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

• Chronogram
  https://www.chronogram.com/arts/a-review-of-ruth-bonapacesthe-bulgarian-training-manual-21613186
  Word count: 707

  A Review of Ruth Bonapace's The Bulgarian Training Manual
  By Susan Yung

  The Bulgarian Training Manual
  Ruth Bonapace
  Clash Books, 2024, $18.95

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  Can a book hold untold riches, promises of health, strength, beauty, and spiritual aspirations? The Bulgarian Training Manual, the tome for which Kingston-based author Ruth Bonapace named her novel, certainly prophesies all these things, even if we get mere whiffs of its contents, in the form of diet advice and a weekly workout chart. To a group of bodybuilders, it becomes a kind of bible; they argue about the different versions of the ad hoc, super-secret manual—a thick stack of photocopies held together by a binder clip. It lands in the hands of Christina ("Tina") Acqualina Bontempi, an unsuccessful real estate broker living in a flood-prone basement apartment in Hoboken who had been raised by her grandmother, or so she thought.

  Tina interacts with a roster of zany characters whose interactions affect her fate in large and small ways. Her ex, Steve (later, Big Steve), gives her the manual to begin with; he has undergone a transformation from OCD nerd to a gym star. Her boss, Joe Fox, a macher who's not only a crackerjack real estate broker but an ex-pilot with Rat Pack style. A mysterious man in a shearling hat who seems to pop up with regularity on various continents. Baba Yaga, a Bulgarian advocate and dealer of a lauded "dietus mirabilis." Tina pinballs between this cast, following fate, hunches, and her desire to achieve fame through her bodybuilding.

  One of the hilarious dietetic secrets to bodily perfection is eating communion wafers, preferably the gluten-free kind. They should be eaten with extracts from arugula-fed snails for maximum effectiveness to match the benefits of performance-enhancing drugs. (Don't knock it till you've tried it.) The demand for the wafers explodes, stressing the factory and sisterhood that makes them. Word spreads, and lines to take communion swell with the swole, along with the donation baskets filled with guilt-driven cash.

  Head-snapping events unfold. Joe Fox hustles Tina to the airport and onto a cargo plane, which he flies to Bulgaria. She encounters a German inn-keeping couple, and Catherine of Siena, part of the #Persecuted#Womens#Collective order, and her erstwhile sister. She eventually comes across the Ancient Gym, where some dweebs are trying to piece together a complete version of The Bulgarian Training Manual. She is compelled to flex her bicep and strike a pose, which elicits applause and reactions telling her she is the real thing, sent to restore the Ancient Gym to its glory and flesh out the manual. Eventually, Tina discovers the identity of her purportedly true biological parents, one of them an A-list bodybuilding icon. She is tasked with completing, or reworking, the training manual, which would be authentic as it would emanate from her DNA.

  The story culminates in the First Annual International Poetry Body Slam, where entrants strike poses to pre-recorded music while volunteers read original poetry only in Bulgarian, English, or Esperanto—the ultimate melding of body and mind. If that seems wacky, consider some of the events at the recent Paris Olympics such as speed climbing, breaking, and artistic swimming (with all props to the athletes, to new eyes they seem pretty wild!). The Olympians also serve as real-life examples of people of widely varying backgrounds focusing on competing and training toward reaching the games while working typical jobs. Not unlike Tina and The Bulgarian Training Manual.

  Bonapace's plot leaps from here to there; sometimes it feels as if she's simply reveling in the power and play of words for fun, remarking on alliteration every now and then, toying with different forms, from song lyrics to scripted dialogue. Quotations and references from classics to pop culture abound, from Shakespeare, Neil Gaiman, Thomas Kincade, Rachel Ray (presumably intentionally misspelled to avoid legal ramifications), "The Hokey Pokey," to "Rocky and Bullwinkle." Her satirical yet freewheeling style allows for out-there ideas to enter the narrative to weave a sometimes mind-boggling, often entertaining story of self-discovery, self-help, and minor celebrity.