Fiction
Date Published: February 28, 2025
Publisher: MindStir Media
The Belmont is a tale of a young man's struggles with a heartbreak he cannot get past, set against the backdrop of a bacchanalia-filled weekend centered around the 1998 Belmont Stakes horse race, which ended with a Triple Crown bid thwarted by a photo finish. During a long "weekend" spread out over six days and in three different states, a weekend fueled by alcohol and sexual tension, but also filled with reflective, heartbreaking, exhilarating, hilarious, and heartwarming moments, Tommy Cippolini embarks on a journey of self-discovery, experiencing just about every single human emotion along the way. In between episodes filled with anger and frustration, anticipation, anxiety, disappointment, sexual arousal and temptation, binge drinking, daringness and trepidation, hilarity and debauchery, and longing and sadness, Tommy confides in good friends, casual friends, strangers, and family members about his feelings and past trials and tribulations.
Interview
Introduce yourself and tell me about what you do.
My name is Anthony Cocco. I’m 59 years old and a native of Malden, Massachusetts, but I’ve spent most of the last 21 years living about 20 miles north of Boston. Since 1997, I’ve worked in the financial services industry (some asset managers and some retirement services providers), in various roles, and recently started my fifth different job in that industry in February of 2025. Prior to that, I worked (out of college) in the health insurance field, mainly in customer and provider relations (three different companies in two different states—Massachusetts and Florida).
I am the fourth (and final) child born to the late Morris and Dorothy Cocco. I have two living (and one recently deceased) siblings, one brother and one sister (my eldest sister passed away suddenly in July 2024 at age 72).
I have no children of my own and have never been married, but I do have five nieces and nephews (3 of the former and 2 of the latter), two of which are the daughters of my late sister. Since I’m the only one of our parents’ kids to have remained living (for the most part) in Massachusetts, the rest of my family (except for some cousins) is somewhat spread out across the country.
I attended the State University of New York at New Paltz from 1984-88, where I earned a (largely unused) degree in Journalism (I wanted to be a sports broadcaster but got sidetracked when someone convinced me I needed to be a sportswriter instead). It wasn’t long before I realized that vocation wasn’t a good match for me, but my years at New Paltz weren’t entirely wasted because it was during that time when I met one of my lifelong friends, the guy who introduced me to the “Belmont Stakes crew”—his friends from his youth and from his undergrad college years. One of the main characters in my book is based on him, and all of the characters that make up the entire Belmont “tribe”, as I call it in the book, are based on his friends and other acquaintances.
Tell me more about your journey as an author, including the writing processes.
I had always been a decent writer and had studied journalism in college, where I honed my writing ability a bit more. I had thought about writing a novel or becoming a creative writer in general off and on for a long time. However, “life” always got in the way. In particular, the industry in which I ended up (financial services), being highly regulated to the point where your employer wants to know almost everything you’re doing with your life outside the office and actually has to “approve” many of the things you do (outside income sources, charitable activities, personal investments, etc.), kept me from pursuing my writing ambitions for many years—probably out of paranoia more than anything.
But that never stopped me from jotting down or typing out notes for story ideas, both fiction and non-fiction, whenever they popped into my head (even while sitting in my office at work and using my work computer to record the thoughts).
I always felt I had some creativity inside me. I never knew how much or if it was marketable, but I also believed that there was something there—that I had at least a little untapped potential. I just didn’t know if I’d ever be able to try and tap into it.
After my mother died in early 2013, being the only one of their four children in the family still living in Massachusetts, I became responsible for handling all of my father’s affairs, as he was 89 years old at the time and was very dependent on her to handle and manage “the household” during their marriage, including many of his personal appointments and important paperwork (including the family tax returns). So, from March 2013 until his death in November 2018, my life basically boiled down to working my very busy job and managing almost every aspect of my father’s life for him, including being the point person on the sale of our old family home, the purchase of a condo he acquired with the proceeds from that sale, and then the sale of that condo when his medical condition necessitated a move into an assisted living facility.
Needless to say, it was a stressful, somewhat restrictive existence, but it was my obligation as a son and I was happy to be able to do it, especially since my siblings all lived far away and had their own lives that they couldn’t just abandon.
My father died late in the 2018 calendar year and the holidays were right around the corner, so I didn’t have the chance to come up for air until January or February of the following year. When the dust finally settled—when all his accounts were closed, his assets had been dispersed and the book on his life had been shut and tucked away on the shelf—I found myself experiencing strange feelings of emptiness.
Taking care of my father for those five-plus years had given my life, perhaps for the first time ever, an actual purpose. Suddenly, that purpose was gone and I often found myself staring out the window of my commuter train every day and night on the way to and from work, asking myself, “What do I do now? What is my purpose here?”
The thoughts would often move me to tears. I was already in my early 50s, and I was working a ridiculously busy job for a company that really didn’t appreciate me. A job that took up too much of my time and occupied too much of my thoughts, even when I wasn’t in the office (or logged in remotely); that didn’t pay enough; and that didn’t (I thought) allow me to pursue outside activities without restrictions.
I muddled through a difficult 2019—confused and sad for most of the year; and then came COVID.
Not long after my company sent everyone home to work remotely in March 2020, I was, inexplicably and without being asked if I could handle it, assigned an additional, very time-consuming task to my already overflowing platter of responsibilities. This task ate into my already very limited window for using vacation days/taking time off. So, in addition to the isolation brought about by COVID (and being single, with few relatives living nearby), I didn’t have much downtime to recharge my batteries, either.
It wasn’t long before I began feeling trapped in a gloomy “loop” — still trying to figure out what my purpose in life was, isolated, overworked, underpaid, and with very little free time to explore possibilities.
Then, between late 2021 through early 2023, all of my remaining aunts and uncles got sick and passed away in quick succession, basically severing the few ties that I still had to my parents’ families (and my youth).
By then, my company had instituted a return-to-work policy and asked us to come back into the office three days per week. Adding a long, difficult commute to my days when I was already feeling down most of the time certainly did not help matters. The death of my favorite aunt, my mother’s sister, in January 2023, was a flashpoint. My mood grew darker by the day, and in mid-February of 2023, I began to feel as if I was starting to “lose it.”
Finally, one day—either on or right before Valentine’s Day, in fact, I spent most of the day sitting at my desk and going out of my way to hide the emotions welling up inside me from my co-workers. I was overwhelmed by a number of different feelings, but hopelessness was the predominant one.
It was then I finally began to realize that I had to make some changes, and that I had to find out if I could make something of myself by trying to leverage my alleged creativity.
I had to give it a try.
The one saying that kept dominating my thoughts at that time was Andy Dufresne’s famous credo from The Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living; or get busy dying.”
So, not long after my near meltdown at the office, and about a month after my aunt’s funeral, I began converting The Belmont, an idea I’d had for a while and for which I had some typewritten notes already compiled, from a concept into an actual manuscript. Every night after work, I would sit down at my computer and write.
The writing process quickly became a salve for the emotional wounds created by all the internal turmoil I’d been experiencing since 2019. In fact, because I was so busy at work and had so little free time, it became my only respite. It was an outlet, a distraction from all the negative, confusing, and sad feelings. In fact, the writing process almost became like an unseen friend helping me deal with my growing sense of isolation.
The story is loosely based on an amalgam of personal experiences. So, because I was so badly in need of a distraction and needed to vent about the many years of pent-up frustration—and also desperately needed reasons to smile as I began to write about and remember better, happier days—the initial writing process zipped along very quickly.
By April, only about two-plus months after I began, I had written roughly 62,000 words, and I thought I was done. But as I went back and reread it over and over, I realized there were parts of the story that didn’t quite “fit” and were actually driving the main narrative off into tangents that served no purpose. So, I put it aside for a while to give my mind a break and to, hopefully, let it “reboot” and come up with some new ideas.
It took a while, but after several months of writing down every new idea and every possible revision to the existing text, sometimes typing into my phone’s notepad app; sometimes typing into separate documents stored on my computer, and sometimes by putting pen to legal pad; in early 2024, I sat down and began working again.
I deleted the parts of the book that I thought were driving the narrative off into a ditch, and I crafted some new sections (about 20,000 words worth) that I thought were both entertaining and added depth to the story—and helped lay the groundwork for the main character’s epiphany at the end.
The final product, now about 83,000 words long, was completed around May 2024, and Mindstir Media accepted the manuscript in late June. Their editors did a great job helping me to refine the story and improve upon it—to give it a cleaner, more focused narrative. The editorial process was finished near the end of the 2024 calendar year, and the first three months of 2025 were spent working with them on the cover layout and interior formatting to get it ready for public consumption.
Tell me about your Book
Ultimately, it’s a story of attempting to recover from heartbreak, self-discovery, and personal redemption (of sorts), but it’s also funny and fun, with positive messages about the importance of loyalty, friendships, and being kind—to others, for sure, but especially to yourself.
It’s set against the backdrop of a raucous, alcohol-fueled “boys weekend” that takes place (mostly) at the 1998 Belmont Stakes horse race, with weigh stations along the way in New Jersey and New York City. A representative from one publisher who expressed interest in the manuscript compared the story to the movie Sideways starring Paul Giamatti. I’ve always told people it was more like The Hangover movie—because of the epiphany Stu has about his life, especially his romantic life, at Doug’s wedding after a wild, adventure-filled weekend and his unexpected personal connection with an exotic dancer. I would often say, “Think of The Hangover, except it takes place at a horse race instead of in Vegas.”
The idea for this story derived from many personal experiences that occurred over multiple years, distilled down into one long six-day “weekend”. Those experiences included several heartbreaks, which are boiled down into a single, major one representing the crux of the main character’s (Tommy’s) emotional dilemma throughout the book. His former fiancé is a composite of many different ex’s. However, Tommy’s general lack of self-esteem grew out of not only the various heartbreaks but from many personal admonitions, mistakes he could not leave in the past, and other confidence-draining encounters that led to a negative self-image and an almost pathological need not only to be liked, but to avoid conflict at all costs.
His slow path to redemption begins when, after experiencing yet another shocking disappointment that leaves him cursing, loudly, in public at a rest stop just off a busy highway, he essentially casts aside all his inhibitions, betrays his deeply ingrained instincts, and actually seeks out conflict. While he’s denied the conflict he seeks, his actions lead to a surprising encounter that turns out to be an important building block that helps him start to repair the long-ago damaged foundation of his, and just about everyone else’s life: a sense of self-worth.
Any message for our readers
The main message I’d like to convey is this: do not let other people control how you feel about yourself. That includes your employer or boss, your co-workers, your friends, your family, strangers you encounter along the way, and even your girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, and lovers.
Don’t give anyone that kind of power over you. Stand up for yourself, if you can, but if the situation does not allow you to do so (for example, if you’re in customer service and a customer is being rude or mean or insulting), do not carry it with you. Just let it go. If anyone treats you poorly or tries to make you feel bad about yourself, that’s their issue. It has nothing to do with you and it should not affect your sense of self-worth. Give yourself some credit.
You’re here (on this earth) for a reason. You have a purpose. It may take a while for you to find out what that is. But the important thing is to never let the actions or words of any other human throw you off course and disrupt your path toward discovering that purpose. No one can do that to you—as long as you don’t let them.
Story
The relationship between Leah (aka Maggie) and Tommy is probably the most interesting and pivotal story arc in the book. It starts off with a great deal of animosity and distrust. He hates her for what she did to his friend Vince on Saturday night at Scores, and she doesn’t want anything to do with him since she feels he’s going to blow up the steady hustle she’s been running on Vince over the previous several months.
When Tommy feels as if he has no choice but to use Leah has his sounding board on Sunday afternoon and evening upon his unscheduled return to Scores, the relationship slowly begins to turn. The physical attraction between them is clear, and was clear almost from the beginning, but after several hours together and after Tommy bears his soul to her, they unexpectedly begin to form a closer bond that goes beyond physicality, even though Tommy remains reluctant to trust her completely given what he knows about her past and how she treated his friend.
When Leah tries to leverage their growing bond into a night of passion, Tommy has to summon all the resolve in his body to resist her advances. That only makes her like him even more, and by the next morning, she’s completely transformed from a beautiful temptress after his money to a smitten, sensitive, caring confidante looking out for his best interests.
Before their time together is over, Leah leaves Tommy with confidence-boosting words of wisdom that eventually resonate and help lead him to discover a sense of self-worth that had eluded him up to that point in his life.
About the Author
My name is Anthony Cocco. I’m 59 years old and a native of Malden, Massachusetts, but I’ve spent most of the last 21 years living about 20 miles north of Boston. Since 1997, I’ve worked in the financial services industry (some asset managers and some retirement services providers), in various roles, and recently started my fifth different job in that industry in February of 2025. Prior to that, I worked (out of college) in the health insurance field, mainly in customer and provider relations (three different companies in two different states—Massachusetts and Florida).
I am the fourth (and final) child born to the late Morris and Dorothy Cocco. I have two living (and one recently deceased) siblings, one brother and one sister (my eldest sister passed away suddenly in July 2024 at age 72).
I have no children of my own and have never been married, but I do have five nieces and nephews (3 of the former and 2 of the latter), two of which are the daughters of my late sister. Since I’m the only one of our parents’ kids to have remained living (for the most part) in Massachusetts, the rest of my family (except for some cousins) is somewhat spread out across the country.
I attended the State University of New York at New Paltz from 1984-88, where I earned a (largely unused) degree in Journalism (I wanted to be a sports broadcaster but got sidetracked when someone convinced me I needed to be a sportswriter instead). It wasn’t long before I realized that vocation wasn’t a good match for me, but my years at New Paltz weren’t entirely wasted because it was during that time when I met one of my lifelong friends, the guy who introduced me to the “Belmont Stakes crew”—his friends from his youth and from his undergrad college years. One of the main characters in my book is based on him, and all of the characters that make up the entire Belmont “tribe”, as I call it in the book, are based on his friends and other acquaintances.
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