Indie Ink Runs Deep: Chris L Terry

I'd been tossing around the idea of blogging a tattoo series for nearly a year. I know there are websites and books out there that have been-there-done-that already, but I hadn't seen one with a specific focus on the authors and publishers of the small press community. 

After hoarding the photos and essays I've been collecting from these guys since July of 2012, and with the promise of spring peeking its deliciously sunny head out through all of this winter gloom, I decided there was no better time than now to finally unveil THE INDIE INK RUNS DEEP mini-series!

Today's ink comes from Chris L. Terry. Chris has a Fiction Writing MFA from Columbia College Chicago. Curbside Splendor published his novel Zero Fade (Curbside Splendor, 2013), which Kirkus called, "Original, hilarious, thought-provoking and wicked smart: not to be missed." Visit ChrisLTerry.com for more of his writing.

I’ve got tattoos all over my back, legs and arms, but this one stays alone. It’s in honor of my friend Jonny Z, who died in Richmond, Virginia in May 2007. Jonny was an artist, an activist, a beast of a drummer, a member of an elite club called Roommates I’d Live With Again, and the kindest person I knew. Maybe too kind. Like, “Do you have to keep letting your smelly friend live on our couch?” kind. Like, Force you to examine how you interact with people kind.

I tend to be a loner, kinda self-absorbed. Seeing the way that Jonny brought people together showed me that it was possible to trust others, to work with them instead of separating myself. It was a big help in those punkhouse living situations. You can’t be alone then. It’s impossible. So go with the flow.

You’ll see a lot of Richmond old heads with Z tattoos in honor of Jonny. He was a huge part of the city’s creative community, and immediately became a folk hero upon passing, “Be Like Jonny Z” a credo.

This tattoo is of a coffee travel mug like Jonny always carried, but with angel wings and a halo – crooked because it’s having fun. Hope he is too.

 

Order Zero Fade from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound. 

Keep up with Chris L. Terry and Zero Fade on social media:
Facebook.com/zerofadenovel
Twitter.com/zerofade94
Zerofade94.tumblr.com

This post is part of the Zero Fade Blog Tour, where different sites cover the book on the days surrounding its publication. The entire itinerary is listed here: http://www.curbsidesplendor.com/curbside/blog/zero-fade-blog-tour

  

David Maine's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

David Maine's

Would You Rather

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

My tongue is quite rounded so I don’t think it would be too effective as a writing implement. On the other hand, I have two left feet, which is problematic in its own way. There’s really no good answer to this one. I guess I’d go with tongue. That way I could savor every word, and besides, it would encourage me to be pithy and concise.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

Sheesh, I’d happily opt for either one. A bestseller could set you up for a long time, whereas a string of moderates would keep your career ticking steadily along. I think I’d prefer the moderate success. As long as each book does well enough for the next book to happen, that’s good enough for me. Of course, I’d also like to, I don’t know, own a house someday? So get back to me on this one. The answer might change in a few years.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

Who cares what they think after you’re dead? I’ll take the ego-boost during my lifetime, thanks.

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

Without. Starting every sentence with a  conjunction would drive me nuts, whereas forgoing them entirely would require me to come up with some stylized speech patterns a la Spartacus on TV. This is workable and might even be fun.

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

Either one would make me insane. I respectfully refuse to answer.

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that compromises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

Oh, hell, the former I suppose. But the older I get, the more appealing the other choice gets. The way I see it, though, it’s impossible to deliberately write a crappy book. People write what they are compelled to write. I may think Harlequin Romances are shit, but that doesn’t mean I could write one. If I tried, there would be enough of me in it that it would be some unholy offspring of Dave Maine and Harlequin, and I would probably end up sort of liking it in some twisted way and it would bomb anyhow.

BTW, for a fictionalized illustration of this quandry you should all go read Erasure by Percival Everett, which is hilarious and infuriating in equal measure.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

Plot twist. You can get over a plot twist, other stuff happens, whatever. But a character you have to live with for the entire book, years possibly, and then s/he lives on afterward too. So if you hate them, you’re really making your life difficult. I mean you’re going to dream about these people.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

My blood. I hate tattoos and anything that involves marking up my (already-not-so-great) skin. Blood, on the other hand, you regenerate, so…

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

Okay, this is a tough one. Neither is too terribly appealing to tell the truth. I suppose it’s better to keep the end of the world (the subject of my first book) in the pages of a novel rather than out here in reality, but then again, most of my books take place in settings where I’d really rather not be… Kind of a coin toss here, they both have their advantages and (especially) disadvantages.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

Well I did the first, in my original manuscript of The Book of Samson, and that was a blast. I mean, I did use some punctuation—periods—but nothing else, and paragraph breaks, and that was it. My agent and editor threw that out and inserted paragraph indents, although there are still no commas or quotation marks or anything. It was a blast to write, gave a very different feeling to the momentum of the story, and I’d think about going back there again. As for giving up the letter E, yeah, those kind of tricks don’t appeal to me much. I guess you have to be French.

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

Teach it. I don’t want schools to ban anything. (Which doesn’t mean I think Lolita should be taught to 7^th graders. I just don’t think it should be banned.)

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

Bring it on, Dylan. Make me sweat, for all the wrong reasons.

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

Speaking. That way I could sound oblique and brilliant, which is something I have trouble with right now. I think if I only wroke in haiku, nobody would read me at all, even my mom. Come to think of it, I’m not sure my mom reads me now.

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or only the BLANK series?

Well, I don’t know what the Blank series is, so I’ll go with that.

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publically or never talk about it at all?

I have some experience of both of these things, and I think it’s better to be scorned than ignored. On the other hand, getting scorned isn’t a lot of fun either. This is one of those questions that seem to have an obvious answer—negative attention is better than none at all—but frankly that response is a little glib. I do think that it’s better to be reviewed badly than not reviewed at all, but neither of these experiences is enjoyable. The choice is much tougher than many people would have you believe.

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

I already have a voice in my head narrating everything! It’s been there my whole life. I thought everybody had this (?) but maybe not. Anyway, I’ll stick with what I know. I have trouble enough with Twitter already.

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

Computer.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

I’d rather be lying down, but I’d probably worry that it was bad for my heart, so then I’d go with standing on tiptoes. This wouuld not be easy for me; balance isn’t my strong suit, and I’m one of the clumsiest people I know. So the chapters would be short. Hey! It might be a way to get me to write “sudden fiction” or whatever that nonsense is called.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

I’d have to go with naked. It would be mortifying, but mostly for the audience.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

Probably the latter. Even a tired storyline can be elevated by strong writing on the sentence level, whereas it’s just frustrating to read something potentially good that is hampered by weak writing, clichéd phrasing and so forth. Of course, it’s most satisfying to read an excellent story that is written well, but that doesn’t seem to be an option here.

Here's David's response to Mason Johnson's question: If the pen is truly mightier than the sword, what would you rather die from: stab wounds from a pen, or stab wounds from a sword?

Pen. They'd be smaller, but deeper, and I wouldn't suffer as long.

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Check back next week to see what Andrew F Sullivan would rather

and see his answer to Mason's question:

Would you rather have your novel turned into a comic book aimed at 12-year-olds, or turned into a Starz “adults only” miniseries with lots of gratuitous nudity and violence?

   

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David Maine is an old-fashioned pen-on-paper writer who adds his musings to the endless aching howl of the internet.

Drew Reviews: The Facades

The Facades by Eric Lundgren  
4.5 Stars - Strongly recommended
Pages: 272
Publisher: Overlook Press 
Released: Sept. 2013

Guest review by Drew Broussard 

The Short Version: After his moderately famous mezzo-soprano wife disappears, Sven Norberg wanders the streets of Trude in search of her.  But the strange Midwestern town, full of radical librarians and odd cops as well as ordinarily odd people, seems to foil him at every turn - and over it all looms the strange and jarring architecture of Trude's most celebrated resident, a man named Bernhard.

The Review: Trude is apparently a city from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities (Calvino seems to be the hot inspiration these days) - although, having not read the book, I have no distinct point of reference to whether or not Lundgren's view of the city is accurate. Not that it matters, I suppose - but I just thought I'd get that out of the way.

It's worth getting out of the way, you see, because I think Mr. Lundgren is following in the footsteps of another notoriously trickster author: Vladimir Nabokov.  Nobody wants to be that guy saying "on the basis of this debut novel, author Y is the next X!" - but I found The Facades to have such a mostly-successful melding of wordplay, invention, ridiculousness, and deep examinations of the human condition that I couldn't help but think of Nabokov.  It's a unique combination and while plenty of authors combine those elements in their own ways, I found Lundgren's writing to have that same element of deciphering a word-puzzle that you can sometimes (joyously) find in Nabokov.  Of course, that might just be because there are actual word puzzles to be deciphered (two delightful acrostics, in particular).  But the puzzles, the questions of madness that surround the book, and the layers upon layers of oddities in the city never overwhelm or confuse - instead, you get the sense of a terrifically smart hand on the tiller. 

I will admit that the book started a bit slow.  It's unclear, at first, what this story is going to be: mystery? WMFU? Absurd comedy? Something else all together?  And the subplot involving Norberg's son and a vaguely cultish religious order feels oddly similar to Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers - not in a bad way, necessarily, and certainly not in a plagiarism way.  But the similar theme applies - it's just that where that book was about what happens universally when people disappear, this book is about what happens individually when one person disappears.  It was the only moment that didn't feel entirely organic and new.
Well, the radical librarians feel like kindred spirits to Lemony Snicket (especially the new YA novels) or Terry Pratchett concoctions - but Lundgren also gave them a grounding in this reality and a unique spin, so I didn't mind that so much.  I also love the idea of radical librarians, so I was completely on board.

Opera lovers will find special bonus tricks and treats here - and the idea of this massive opera house, full to the brim of baroque ornamentation, in the middle of an otherwise rather dreary and oppressive Midwestern town... it's a hilarious concept of course but also a fitting moment on which to latch when trying to comprehend the way Lundgren works.  This idea is innately ridiculous, of course - but these productions are lavish.  A Baron attends.  They are daring, innovative, and a major cultural touchstone.  But outside of the opera house, there is a sense of that overwhelming claustrophobia that one so often discovers in the Midwest.  That sense of the expanse, of the lack of immediate escapes, if you will.  And that's what makes Molly's disappearance all the more intriguing: Trude is a place (as the epigraph from Calvino and an ending note from Vollstrom both imply) that you do not escape from.  It is a place that contains you and you are contained by it and that is the way of things.  

Think of Bernhard's massive and odd mall, perhaps his masterpiece in the end: a spiral inward towards a great labyrinth - one that is, apparently, unsolvable.  You may try to get out but in the end you are forced to retread the same steps as before.  You are confined to the same place, stuck there.  Think, too, of the rest home for the elderly and insane that Bernhard built and expired in: your memoirs, ranked on level of harrowingness, will get you in and determine your accommodations.  I don't want to give too much away of the concepts at hand because they are funny and interesting and worth discovering on your own - but there are overarching themes to all of these places and things and it makes the book not only an enjoyable read but a mental exercise as well.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.  I can't exactly say why I'm not giving this a full 5.  Perhaps it's the way it was a bit slow to start or the few moments here or there that felt unnecessary or superfluous.  Although, I almost wonder if this book will grow in my estimation some years down the line - re-reading it to discover new facets, uncover new tricks of language, and so on.  New light shed upon things I previously thought to be just... there.  Who is to say?  Readers should understand (and be warned) that the slightly wacky sound of the official synopsis is more muted in the book - but that the true depth is in the distinct imagination of the author and of his creation here.  This is a puzzle to be solved - but you can't be upset if there turns out to be no solution.

Drew Broussard reads, a lot. When not doing that, he's writing stories or playing music or acting or producing or coming up with other ways to make trouble.  He also has a day job at The Public Theater in New York City.

Mason Johnson's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

Mason Johnson's 

Would You Rather

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

 Tongue. I’d dictate it to someone. If anyone called me out as a cheat, I’d stab ‘em with a broken bottle.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

 Which would obtain me the better twitter following? Probably the giant bestseller. I think I’d go with that.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

 I was going to say now, to pay the bills, but then I remembered well known authors don’t make that much. So I’ll go with literary genius.

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

 I’m a big abuser of conjunctions. So if I were able to magically break the habit, I’d be a happy man.

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life? 

Both. I’m going to go with both.

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

 If I could somehow sustain myself writing and never showing anyone, I would. Though this would you rather says nothing about sustaining yourself. Still, it seems really to be able to just write and not have to show anyone ever again. Trying to become published takes up so much time – time that could be better spent – that I would almost rather not have to try at all. I donno.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

 Write a character I hated. I really like when an author can write a hateable character. I love hateable characters. I would love to hate my character.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

 Blood as ink seems wiser, assuming you’re economical with it.

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

 I’d make Kelly LeBrock a character in a novel so I could reenact Weird Science.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E? 

punctuation and capitalization are outdated anyway.

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

 Ban it! Think of the press!

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

 I’m really good at taking a hit. I’m talented at very few things. I mean, I’m not good at writing, I just spend a lot of time doing it. I have a natural talent for getting hit though. For example: I can get punched in the face over and over and over, and nothing. Most people would fall when they feel the cartilage in their nose being flattened – not me.

What was the question?

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

 Speaking in Haiku. I’d obviously be forced to become a wandering samurai, which I was going to do anyway.

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or a series in a language you couldn't read?

 I'd want to be stuck with whatever series has the most books and is the most buoyant. Though, I would like to add, trash or not, 50 Shades of Grey is likely to, uh, keep you better company at night than, you know, most "good" books.

 Would you rather critics rip your book apart publicly or never talk about it at all?

 Publicly. Again: free press!

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

 I already have a voice in my head narrating my every move. But question about the Twitter-thought: would it also post mental images? That makes it simultaneously more tantalizing and scary at the same time.

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

 Pens and paper. Between my horrible handwriting and the fact that I’ve hurt my writing hand a bunch of times, making it slightly painful to write for long lengths of time, makes this an easy one.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

 No contest: flat on my back.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

 Read naked. I didn’t even read my other choice. Naked is definitely better than whatever else was written.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

 Excellent story! Anyone can learn the mechanics ‘n shit; give me a natural born story slinger.

And here is Mason's answer to the question David David Katzman asked him last week:

If you were a body builder, would you rather do curls with Infinite Jest or In Search of Lost Time?

I do curls, and all exercises, in the mirror so I can watch myself. Since Infinite Jest seems to have a better design visually, I'll have to go with that. You won't find me reading the damn thing though!

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Check back next week to see what David Maine would rather

and see his answer to Mason's question:

If the pen is truly mightier than the sword, what would you rather die from: stab wounds from a pen, or stab wounds from a sword?

  

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Mason Johnson is a writer from Chicago who currently works full time writing and editing articles for CBS. You can find his fiction at themasonjohnson.com. Also, he pets all the cats.

Where Writers Write: Scott Garson

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Scott Garson. 

He is the author of IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE?--a collection of stories--and AMERICAN GYMNOPEDIES, a book of microfictions. His fiction has won awards from Playboy, The Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation and Dzanc Books, and he has work in or coming from Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, Hobart, Conjunctions, New York Tyrant and others. He edits the Pushcart-Prize-winning journal of very short fiction, Wigleaf.

Where Scott Garson Writes

Mostly I write on this couch. From the squished-in cushions, you can probably see which side I favor.

I  feel like I should write in a different place. A harder and less comfortable place. I should maybe write standing. Didn’t Hemingway write standing? (Checking Google…)

He did.

If I wrote standing, I’d remember that the work is hard and that the sentences had to be firm, and that would be good.

But Hemingway was a jerk-off, yes?

I know he would have kicked my ass; I’m not trying to say that he wouldn’t have. Still, he was a jerk-off. So I wouldn’t want to write standing up. I wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Anyway the basic truth about writing: you’re losing yourself. It’s probably easier to lose yourself if your back and your butt don’t hurt.

I also write inside my book cover.

Is that cryptic? It’s supposed to be cryptic.

Here’s the story: my brother-in-law, Jason Hieronymus, designed the cover for my collection of stories, IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE? He was here visiting when he designed it. In fact, he was staying in my writing room, which is also the guest room. And because he’s a graphic designer and able to see things sideways, he looked at the wall behind the couch where I write and he began seeing the cover of a book.

Is that not awesome?

And double-awesome: one of those frames on the wall contains photos I took of my wife smoking a cigarette just after we got married. Jason put a white block over the photographs, but later made it somewhat transparent. So you can still see them.

You could say—and you’d be correct—that in the bottom corner of the cover of my book there are several tiny photographs of my wife in a bridal gown smoking. And you could also say that I write just beneath them.

So it’s a good place to write.

I haven’t mentioned: on the wall across from the couch are the bookshelves. If I’m having a sucky day, I can stand and stretch and go to the shelves—for pleasure, for inspiration.

Indie Book Buzz: Exterminating Angel Press

We are knee deep in Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the small press publishing houses to share which of their upcoming releases they are most excited about!

This week's pick comes from Tod Davies, 

Editor and Publisher of Exterminating Angel Press

Divas, Dames & Daredevils by Mike Madrid
(Releases September 22, 2013--just in time for the Brooklyn Book Festival, where I'll be with the book!)

What the book is about and why EAP is publishing it:

As EAP's fabulous publicist, Molly Mikolowski puts it:

"Wonder Woman, Mary Marvel, and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle ruled the pages of comic books in the 1940s, but many other heroines of the WWII era have been forgotten. Through twenty-eight full reproductions of vintage Golden Age comics, Divas, Dames & Daredevils reintroduces their ingenious abilities to mete out justice to Nazis, aliens, and evildoers of all kinds.

Each spine-tingling chapter opens with Mike Madrid’s insightful commentary about heroines at the dawn of the comic book industry and reveals a universe populated by extraordinary women—superheroes, reporters, galactic warriors, daring detectives, and ace fighter pilots—who protected America and the world with wit and guile.

In these pages, fans will also meet heroines with striking similarities to more modern superheroes, including The Spider Queen, who deployed web shooters twenty years before Spider Man, and Marga the Panther Woman, whose feral instincts and sharp claws tore up the bad guys long before Wolverine. These women may have been overlooked in the annals of history, but their influence on popular culture, and the heroes we’re passionate about today, is unmistakable."

She's not fooling--the above is exactly why Divas, Dames & Daredevils is an Exterminating Angel Press book. Mike's work is always about overlooked stories in popular culture, stories that suggest other ways of being than the default settings we are getting so tired of. Why, for example, don't we have any post-menopausal superheroines like Mother Hubbard, who is one of the stories in this collection? Why don't we have a superheroine who makes herself ugly to fight crime? These are interesting questions to me. And beyond that, the stories in here are amazingly great fun.

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While you're here, why not also check out their indiegogo campaign
"Give Us Your F***ing Money Please"...

and click here to read more about it and donate!

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Tod Davies, editor and publisher of indie Exterminating Angel Press, is also the author of Snotty Saves the Day and Lily the Silent, both from The History of Arcadia series, and the cooking memoirs Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking With What You've Got and Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered (June 2014). Unsurprisingly, her attitude toward publishing is the same as her attitude toward literature, cooking, and, come to think of it, life in general: it's all about working with the best of what you have to find new ways of looking and new ways of being, and, in doing so, to rediscover the best of our humanity. Davies now lives with her husband, Alex, and their two dogs, in the alpine valley of Colestin, Oregon, and at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, in Boulder, Colorado.

The Audio Series: Kim Henderson

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.


Today, Kim Henderson reads from The Kind of Girl, which won the Seventh Annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Contest.  Her stories have appeared in Tin House, H_NGM_N, Cutbank, River Styx, Chamber Four, The Southeast Review, New South, and elsewhere.  She lives with her husband on a mountain in Southern California, where she chairs the Creative Writing program at Idyllwild Arts Academy.

Click on the soundcloud link below to experience The Kind of Girl as read by the author:

The word on The Kind of Girl:

Thirteen-year-old girls sunbathe in a public park, watching boys they realize they will never have. Three young friends’ admiration for their P.E. teacher leads to unexpected consequences. A woman reflects on the brother who went missing when she was twelve, while another longs for a father just out of reach. One girl gives up on being bad while another wearies of being good. Kim Henderson’s collection The Kind of Girl ponders the ways girls and women find themselves defined—whether by their own hand or others’, their fantasies, or their unyielding environments. Here girls learn the complexity of adulthood and sexuality in stories of no more than 1,000 words each that are by turns absurd, realistic, and startlingly simple. Each story offers a fleeting but unflinching gaze into the mysteries, tragedies, and wonders of growing up.
*lifted with love from goodreads

Madeleine Reviews: The Man Who Watched The World End

3.5 stars -- Highly recommended to those who can stare down the apocalypse without flinching
259 pages
Read from 31 August to 5 September 2013
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Released: 15 April 2013

By guest reviewer Madeleine Maccar

If you're looking for a breezy, feel-good tale, The Man Who Watched the World End is probably not for you, nor will it be your kind of novel if you prefer endings that are neatly packaged with bright, optimistic bows that herald the joys awaiting a story's characters beyond the last page; however, if you like your fiction to be character-driven and insightful even as it teeters on the brink of society's obsolescence, then Chris Dietzel has written the book for you.

The novel begins as humanity's reign is ending. The children comprising mankind's final generation are alive only in the biological sense. They grow older but are human marionettes: silent, immobile, helpless to care for themselves, kept alive by the loving kin or kindhearted strangers upon whom they are wholly dependent. Decades later, these Blocks (so named "because it was as if their condition obstructed them from the world") and their siblings are the last proof of man's existence, reduced to pockets of senior citizens cohabiting in group settlements (though, if our narrator is indicative of the outliers, a handful are watching their and society's clocks run down in the familiar imprisonment of crumbling homes in derelict neighborhoods) as nature reclaims all that the elderly remnants of a once thriving species no longer have the youthful vigor to defend.

We see very little of this, as the reader's glimpse into the quieting world is a three-month period captured within one lonely old man's lovingly, diligently maintained diary. It is through the eyes of this man -- who, along with his Block brother, is the last human occupant of the otherwise abandoned and symbolically named neighborhood of Camelot -- that the audience bears witness to the conclusion of our earthly chapter. Since the world is ending not with a bang, not even with a whimper but a slow exhalation, there really isn't a whole lot to see other than one man's daily ritual of tending to the brother for whom his love becomes increasingly unyielding, hoping for a southward ride from a passing convoy on its way to one of the communal-living sites, and watching the local flora and fauna take back what man has only temporarily claimed. But this is not a story of man vs. nature, man vs. self or even man vs. improbable odds: It is, simply, an account of one man's life that turns flashbacks into a supporting cast and exposition into thoughtful narration.

The elderly gentleman tasked with narrating the end of society as he witnesses it carries the story almost entirely on his own: his brother is in a waking coma, his last remaining neighbors fled right before the novel's beginning, and the animals surrounding his house are more interested in his future carcass than his breathing companionship -- including the wild dogs and feral cats born of domestic pets so many litters ago. All he has are his memories, which are equally parts familiar and tinged with a foreign sorrow, as he was among the last wave of normally functioning children and grew up knowing that most babies born after him, like his brother, would never be shaken from their unresponsive silences.

As he reveals more of his past self and present worries, he paints a picture of a bygone era that is just recognizable enough to be eerie: His memories are just like any of ours, composites of his internal and external memories with a few of his parents' own that have stuck with him over the years, but interspersed with the sense that doors previously unknown to mankind were suddenly slamming shut forever as he and the rapidly diminishing number of "normal" children became the last to tackle the once-joyous milestones of growing up.

It is in showcasing such memories that Dietzel's attention to detail may shine the brightest, as the far-reaching impact of a species poignantly aware that it has no future was something he obviously (and successfully) considered from all sides. From baby items suddenly becoming a defunct business to the government finally summoning the foresight to ensure the last hiccup of humanity will at least be provided for in what should have been its grandchild-rich golden years, the international ripple effect of newborns lacking discernible brain functions is terrifying in both its implications and the ways in which Dietzel summarily dismantled familiar infrastructure. The secondhand glimpses of a world that has seen the last Hollywood film, the final World Series, the disbanding of governments, the emotional ramifications of tracking the youngest "normal" person, and the annihilation of the hope that keeps us moving forward are hard to watch even as past events, but Dietzel writes so matter-of-factly and compellingly that each memory becomes the ultimate example of how our very human curiosity forces us to ogle unfolding tragedy.

There are a few weak spots in what is an otherwise impressive debut novel. The greengrocer's apostrophe -- my sworn enemy -- popped in to say hullo a few times ("Dalmatians and Rottweiler's united"; "if the Johnson's just now decided...") and there were a few homophone issues, like "feint breaths," "slightly older then myself" and "faired better," that drove me a little batty. Less frequent were simple editing issues, such as "the last four decades years" and "He couldn't help but be letdown." Aside from a comparatively few lapses in mechanics, the biggest problem I had with the story itself was the government's Survival Bill, which "provided the last generation of functioning adults with resources to take care of themselves and their Block relatives." As a reader, it sometimes seemed like an easy way to sidestep the survival issues a vulnerable society would face in a more brutally overt end-world scenario; as a writer, though, I understood that tacking on the additional responsibility of a people left to fend for themselves without food, electricity and a reliable internet connection in increasingly hostile terrain would only detract from story Dietzel wanted to tell.

But for every one pitfall, The Man Who Watched the World End had a dozen more successes. It shows an incredible awareness of the human condition, of how loneliness and constant reminders of our fading presence in a world we once lorded over can affect everything from a single man to an entire desperate, dying species. The metaphors were resoundingly spot-on: I couldn't help but read the Block phenomenon as a cautionary tale foretelling the long-term dangers of what happens when children of Helicopter Parents grow up without any idea of how to function outside their protective bubbles, and having the narrator reside in Camelot -- a name nearly synonymous with so much promise and so much lost -- was a subtle yet effective touch. 

The Man Who Watched the World End is a tribute to humanity's prodigious knack for optimistic denial and its inability to believe that its end is not only possible but also inevitable. It is fraught with hopefulness and helplessness, a celebration of how the past and present can be powerful motivators in the absence of a future, and a touching example of how the strength of family in all its incarnations can often be enough to keep an individual going against the harshest of odds.

When she's not immersed in the high-octane world of financial proofreading, Madeleine Maccar alternately maintains and neglects her book-review blog, which can be found at ilikereadingandeating.blogspot.com.

Where Writers Write: JM Forrest

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is J M Forrest, author of humorous fantasy novel Orders From Above, published by Cosmic Egg Books, and a self-published collection of poetry, Reflections.

Jane achieved an Honours degree in English when she was 40, and followed that with an MA in Creative Writing ten years later. Her main interest is anything to do with the paranormal.

She lives in a small Wiltshire village with her Greek husband, George, and crossbreed dog, Darcy. You can find out more about her on her website, www.jmforrest.com

Where JM Forrest Writes

I have scribbled stories and poems practically since I learned to write, so over the years I have sat on many chairs at many desks and tables. When I was younger I wrote, of course, with pencils and pens, and then, having learned to type when I started work, I progressed through manual and electric typewriters to word processors, desktops and laptop computers. Still though, I craft poems using pen and paper before putting them onto computer, crossing out and re-working as I go, until I end up with writing all over the page in different directions. Stories and novels are typed start to finish, as I feel a real connection from brain to fingers to keyboard when working on prose, and I can type just about as fast as I can think.

I've lived in my current home for nearly 6 years, a place bought as a DIY project. As we were transforming it I was too busy to write much, but when I did, it was usually at the dining table. This meant having to clear everything away so we could have our evening meal there, and putting it all back out again the next day.

Producing Reflections in 2011 meant taking over my husband's office as well as the dining table, as that's where our printer is, and formatting is so much easier on the bigger screen of his PC.

Fed up with me totally usurping his space, George offered to build me a studio in the garden. Well, I could hardly say no, now could I? And here it is, complete with beamed ceiling to match the house:

My own attempts at art hang on the walls, my favourite books and CD's are in the bookcase, and special gifts from special friends are on display. I absolutely love it. To the left as you look in, there are cupboards on the wall, and a long worktop where I can spread out my papers if I'm writing, or work on my creative hobbies of making greetings cards and stained glass Christmas tree decorations.

The writing desk started out against the back wall (not good, according to Feng Shui, as I had my back to the doors), then it was against the side wall. I recently moved it to how it is here, facing the double doors, and hence the lovely view to our garden and beyond.

This is my place. I still sometimes use the office and the dining room, but no-one is allowed into my studio without invitation. Oh, except for the dog. He's welcome everywhere!

It can take me ages to settle down to a writing session, as I am excellent at finding displacement activities: moving furniture around /defrosting the fridge /tidying my wardrobes / playing Spider Patience. But when I do get started, I'll work for many hours at a time, with just a few brief breaks to make tea, coffee, or something to eat. I get right inside the story, to the point where I think it is more real than anything else around me.

When I need to get away from the laptop to think about my characters and plotlines, I take Darcy across the beautiful fields nearby and let Nature help me to focus. I talk out loud, acting out the dialogues to ensure they sound authentic. At first, this alarmed quite a few fellow dog walkers, but I think now they are used to seeing this crazy woman strolling along, gesticulating and chattering away to herself!