I met John Gojcaj more than a few years ago when I was hanging out at the J & R Cigar store in Paramus, New Jersey. Now called the Monte Cristo Lounge. I was smoking a cigar, and he was rebuilding the place. Always fascinated by people who can use their imagination and hands to build things I struck up a conversation.
John is Albanian from Montenegro. When I told him I wrote the book BESA about a fictitious Italian and Albanian mob war he knew who I was. We began talking about New York Albanians and it was evident that I knew so many of his friends and family from my travels in New York City and BESA. From Detroit, John often says I know more Albanians in New York than he does. While it’s true that I have an affinity for Illyrians, every Albanian I know seems to know the Gojcaj family.
As we got to know one another, I quickly discovered that John was passionate about films, acting, and the written word. He had a few stories that he wanted to bring to life in print.
“Lou, I had a dream twenty years ago that I would like to write but I don’t know where to start,” was all I needed to hear.
His dream was of twin boys who were separated at birth. The dream was so profound to John that it stayed with him all those years.
The thought of twins being extracted from each other, while not a new concept became intriguing to me. We started running various scenarios past one another and came up with characters and a plot that takes place in the 1980’s in Barranquilla, Colombia. A mother must decide to sell one of her sons so the three of them would literally not starve to death. I chose Colombia and the drug world to dramatize the plot.
John and I unwittingly jumped on an emotional roller coaster.
We worked together daily for months going back and forth with the characters and their lives.
There were a few disagreements with the direction of the book, but we always compromised our positions while working together on the finished product.
After we published On the Side of the Road and began getting great reviews and doing a few small book signings, John was convinced that our story had merit for a feature film. We hired my cousin, Michael Miceli, a screenwriter. He fell in love with the story.
Mike did a few renditions of the screenplay. I’m not the most patient writer, which has been a problem on almost every project of mine, but John kept working on the screenplay until he was satisfied that it was worthy of passing around.
John also insisted we have the book done in audio. I’m glad he did.
We are soon conducting a national campaign to promote this book and hope the film gets picked up. At the risk of sounding self-serving, On the Side of the Road is a really good book that, in the right hands, will make a great movie. Let’s see!
