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Beneath The Bridge: The Tribulations of a Street Racer

by Calista Travaglini Parasuraman

376 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-2633; ISBN 1-4251-0875-X; US$24.95, C$28.69, EUR20.49, £14.35

Think you know what drives a street racer? Go underground. Pick a side, place your bet and commit. Two crews, two leaders, one race, no second chances! The tribulations of a street racer.

About the Book

Will Travis at 21 has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Since his parents bailed out, he was left to raise his teenage sister, five year old son and lookout for his loyal car crew. Growing up in a world that had surrounded him by cars and illegal street racing, he found what he was truly gifted at and stumbled across a possible end to the hard life they were living.

Believing this course to be his way out, he finds himself cornered in a situation where money, corruption and a false sense of loyalty dominate his future.

He is faced with the hard decisions of risking everything he has fought for in the biggest and most dangerous race of his life, which could make or break him. The Bridge.

About the Author

Calista Parasuraman was born on the 7th of July 1984 in Perth, Western Australia.

She grew up with an older brother that taught her everything she knew. She enjoyed computer games, playing with GI Jo figurines, movies and basketball and was quickly labelled a tomboy.

She loved movies, they were her escape. Lock the door and turn on the TV and she was gone. Gone into her own little world, where troubles that sat outside her bedroom door seemed to disappear.

She wrote stories as a kid and wrote a story in her head that had been over 10 years in the making and yet to hit paper. In a sense, stories were an escape. Beneath the Bridge was a huge escape. It was a place to express herself without the fear of verbal rejection.

She was diagnosed with A.D.D. and Dyslexia at age eleven and grew up thinking she would never succeed. Being told by other kids, family members and people in the professional field that she would only ever succeed in simple repetitious work.

After failing most subjects in school, being labelled the problem child at home and witnessing a family break up, she gave up trying and dropped out of high school half way through grade 10.

She worked full time in a repetitious job at a plant nursery for fewer than five dollars an hour.

During her own time, she worked on the computer doing video editing. Later, after quitting her nursery job, she and her brother made a small car crew which she named "Clutch Riders".

Clutch Riders is what she calls her 'Golden Years'.

It was a time where Calista, her brother and friends all hung out and made a documentary about their cars and their driving ability. They built up cars, went drifting, entered car competitions, played up for the video camera and sucked down as many frozen cokes as they could, each and every day.

It was not so much about what they did, but how they did it. She says "we could have done anything, anything to release the tension and anger that had built up over the years. It just so happened that cars were where we found our answer".

Beneath the Bridge is her first book and many characters are based on people from Clutch Riders. The fun, the joking, the friendship, it was all real and happened almost every day.

She was married in 2004 and has overcome the shadow of failure that hindered her in the past. She runs her own Video Editing Business and Hydro Dog Franchise. She also is working on her second book - the sequel to Beneath the Bridge- and has many more stories to come in the near future.

She now has a very different attitude towards her own potential and the possibilities that await. Never let it be said "it cannot be done" and "never believe the limits that other people place on you until you have tested your own strength".

She once lived by the saying "the first step towards failure is trying" now she lives by "the first step towards failure is not to try".

Excerpts