U.S. summer love recalled in 'storygraph'

By Helly Minarti

JAKARTA (JP): In this time of crisis, which has set limitations on many, some privileged people can still make their dream come true.

One of them is Rio Haminoto, known as Alumera. The 25-year-old has managed to launch his first novel Don Joviano -- he calls it a "storygraph" -- which comes with an audio cassette containing four songs as the soundtrack for his story. The set has been available in certain record stores since February.

"We only published 1,000 copies. About half of them are sold already," Rio said last week.

Writing a book has been Rio's secret dream for years. Don Joviano is a fictitious character but the story is based on Rio's early writings -- autobiographical short stories -- about his own romance with an Italian girl he met at a U.S. summer school he attended when he was still in high school in the early 1990s. The romance ended, but the memory stayed.

"I wanted to have 'something' to remember it. So I started putting it down as a series of short stories," said Rio.

Friends read them and encouraged him to develop them into a novel. So, he spiced it up with some mob suspense to match the romantic scenes, which resulted in a plot more like a cross between Mario Puzo's Last Don (not his critically acclaimed classic mob story, Godfather) and those of Indonesia's queen of love drama, Marga T.

Rio began his studies in the U.S. in 1992. He spent two years in Omaha and enrolled at Clark University in Boston, majoring in International Politics. He graduated at the end of 1996, but it was not until mid-1997 that he came back to Jakarta. Acting on his friends' advice, he started to put the story together. But the idea rolled out to more than just a mere fiction story.

"We thought to complete the book with photographs and record few songs as a background," said Rio. He created a pen name, Alumera. "It means nothing, I just like the sound."

In 1998 the project began. His circle of friends, mostly from his days at a Catholic boys high school, helped him with the whole production -- from taking photos to composing songs.

"All is based on friendship and friends of friends' relationships," said Rio. There was no rush nor rigid deadline as they used their own time between their daily routine.

"Everything just flowed. If I ran out of money, then I waited until I got my next wage," explained Rio, who now works for a ship docking company as deputy operations manager.

Now, the book. The preface is full with poetically mushy words. Then there is a detailed tribute to different people, including the Italian girl he once fell in love with.

Rio does not read fiction. He only read college textbooks and a few compulsory Shakespeare plays during his studies. But it explains why his writing -- the storyline, the sentence structure even the smattering of exclamation marks that are irritatingly improperly used -- is simply of amateur standing.

The story unfolds through the first person, the protagonist Rani. There are too many holes in character development and his choice to highlight landscapes from world cities like London and New York or fine places such as the best restaurant in Milan does not help at all. But what can you expect from an author's debut who has never gone through creative baptism of painful self- training and professional tests like rejection? He had five editors to back him up -- but even that did not help correct the punctuation.

Rio just smiled to a comment that he is simply a romantic freak who tried to write. It is obvious that his Don Joviano is not a generation cue like Douglas Coupland's Generation X for North America young people in early 1990s. Rio chose the corny path of flowery style spun in a typical Hollywood-style happy ending.

Of course, Rio has his own creative reason: to stimulate the middle class to read.

"Ours (the middle class) does not have political awareness. They're not the 'real' middle class," he cited Harold Crouch, an Australia expert on Indonesia's politics.

"One pathetic fact is, I think, that the young middle-class do not read," said Rio.

He described them as an "MTV generation who watch and listen more than (contemplate on) reading good books."

So he wrote Don Joviano as it is now. "They read the story, they see the visualization in photographs, and they can accompany the reading with the music."

Printed on quality paper with nice graphic design -- despite the flaw of casting too-young models for older characters -- Don Joviano is meant to appeal to decorate those youngster's book shelves.

And it was clearly not a cheap project. Rio seemed reluctant to reveal production costs. "Most came from my personal savings. Sponsors (among them are an international hotel in Jakarta, an upscale Mexican restaurant and a chartered aircraft company) only provided their venues for free photo shoots."

But, he admitted that he does not care if sales do not cover the expenses. "We were having fun doing it. And it is a dream come true. That is why I just want to release it once," said Rio, who persistently insisted that he comes from a modest family.

Really? "OK. I'm one of the middle class. But I got it from my family. I'm working hard now to 'earn' it," he finally added.

Rio intends to push ahead with a second storygraph while keeping his present job in the ship docking company instead of working as a political analyst.

"My parents vaguely consented to my choice of International Politics in the first place. But I promised to find a way to do business someday," said Rio.

In the future, he intends to follow in his parent's footsteps by becoming an entrepreneur.

But before that happens, he feels content finding a creative niche he can explore: making a movie -- a vigor that has to be appreciated despite his first book's shortcomings. Besides, the soundtrack is good. Its first single, Hanyalah Dirimu (Only You) sung by Nadya Kalangie, is climbing the charts of several radio stations and even reached the top for two weeks (still holds that position when this article was written) in one of them. The soundtrack's three Indonesian songs were specifically composed and the only English one is a cover version. He got his say in selecting the songs but the music was handled by Pongky, his high school mate who sings for the Singiku pop band.

The 202-page book and the cassette is sold as a package for Rp 69,000, which is quite expensive as the prices of local books start from Rp 20,000, while a local cassette costs about Rp 14.000.