Les Edgerton's Blog, page 14

*New Poem from William Joyce*

Hi folks,

I've been in constant communication with my friend, the writer William Joyce (who also writes under the name Guillermo O'Joyce). He had to leave the U.S. as he couldn't survive on his S.S. and went to Guatemala, but between the civil war going on and the outlaws and a still-high cost of living, he recently left to go live in Mexico where he is currently. He tells me the cost of living is half what it was in Guatemala and infinitely safer!



Yesterday was his birthday (75) and he sent me this poem which I'd like to share with you. He'd just colored his beard and was bummed out the ladies weren't complimenting him on it. Like me, he knows the veracity of that saying, "Just because there's snow on the roof doesn't mean there's not a fire down below..."

Hope you enjoy his poem!

He wrote me: Tomorrow I turn 75 but none of the ladies have congratulated on my beard dye.  Wrote a poem about it.
 Wrote this poem for my birthday:                                                   Fuck People                                        If they're going                                        to go on                                        making a nuisance                                        of themselves                                        with cell phones,                                        poking                                        head down                                        running into you                                        on the street,                                        fuck people.                                        Bomb them,                                        hang them                                        from lamposts,                                        if they keep up                                        that insane poking                                        with their heads down                                        and can't see                                        the brilliance                                        of my beard dye,                                        fuck them,                                         start the bombs                                         falling.                                        As their heads                                        come off                                        they'll still be
                                        poking. 
Thanks, William. Happy birthday, old warrior!
Blue skies,Les

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN

Hi folks,
Posted some stuff from Richard Brautigan yesterday on FB and found a lot of other folks loved his work as much as I do. So, I’m posting some more than many won’t have seen as it’s from a book of his uncollected work, titled, THE EDNA WEBSTER COLLECTION OF UNDISCOVERED WRITINGS.
Here ya go:
a young man
Surely goodnessand mercyshall follow meall the daysof my life,and I will dwellin the houseof the Lordforever, if therent isn’t too high.
awakening
            The dog had fallen from a high cliff down onto the road, and then trucks and cars had run over it, I guess, because the dog was only an inch thick.
The dog was white, and its guts were white.
When I saw the dog, I couldn’t believe it for a moment.
Then I had to believe it.
Then I started crying.
I was five years old.The dog was the first dead animal I had ever seen.
I had always thought that everything lived forever.
When My Soul Didn’t Love Me
Once upon a sad weirdthere lived a girlwho was my beautiful soul given form.So,of course,I loved her a cash-registerful.But she didn’t love me a penny.It was very sad and weird having my soulnot love me.
Untitled
Iam waiting anxiouslyfor Hollywood to buy this bookand pay umpity-ump cash for itand turn it into a super-colossalspectacle with ten thousand extras,2,000 horses, 52 lions, 60 king cobras,And every Hollywood actress who has beendivorced over five times.
Hollywood will,of course,change the titleto something like
“The Outcasts of Devil’s Island.”
And, finally, the poem I wish I had written for my wife…
i would walk backacross hellto get Your hat
i wouldcarry You across hell,andif You had forgottenYour hat,            i would walk            back across hell            and get it for You.
And… just… damn! What a Writer…
Blue skies,Les

THE DEATH OF TARPONS offered free for a short time...

Hi folks,

My British ebook publisher, Endeavour Books, has just offered my novel, THE DEATH OF TARPONS for free for a short period. Hope you glom onto a copy and if you like it, I'd really appreciate a review on Amazon. It does everything for future sales and exposure.

Click onto: https://www.amazon.com/Death-Tarpons-Edgerton-ebook/dp/B01N8PNDS9/ref=sr_1_2?tag=geolinker-20&ie=UTF8



Thank you.

Blue skies,
Les

Culturmag article and review of THE RAPIST.

Hi folks,
I'm jazzed! A great article and review just came out in the German magazine, Culturmag, on my book THE RAPIST. You can read it at either of these links.http://culturmag.de/…/…/les-edgerton-der-vergewaltiger/97334http://translate.google.com/translate…It will soon be available in German from the publisher Pulpmaster.

Blue skies,
Les

TED TALK

HI Folks,

Please take a few minutes out of your day to watch this Ted Talk by Eli Pariser. Mr. Pariser sheds illumination on why so many people don't have a clue what's going on in this country and the world. This is one of the most important speeches I think I've ever heard. It explains why so many people are so misinformed.


Just click on www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles

Thank you.

Blue skies,
Les

New review of Bomb! from Elizabeth White

Hi folks,

Elizabeth White has just posted a review of Bomb! on her site and it's a doozy! Check it out at the link.



Thanks, Elizabeth!

Blue skies,
Les

http://www.elizabethawhite.com/2016/12/05/bomb-by-les-edgerton/

Overlooked podcast!

HI folks,

I have no idea how this happened, but yesterday by accident, I "found" a podcast by the great folks at Booked, Livius and Robb, where they reviewed my novel, Bomb! I have no idea how I missed this, but I did. I'd like to share it with you here, if I may.

These guys are really good and I don't say that because they give my books great reviews, but because they give a ton of writers great reviews. They know their stuff and it's always a great pleasure to encounter reviewers who really do "get it."

Please click on the link and give 'em a listen. Thank you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cal-Tu6sPFs&t=43s

Blue skies,
Les

First Review for THE DEATH OF TARPONS

HI folks,

Received the first review of my novel, THE DEATH OF TARPONS, just released from Endeavour Books (UK) and their Odyssey imprint, their new imprint for literary works. Hope others will pick it up and take the time to provide a review. This one for sure made my day!



5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful tale of heart-ache and redemptionBy Gerald O'Connor on 11 Nov. 2016Verified Purchase
The Death of Tarpons by Les Edgerton is a coming-of-age book set in Freeport, Texas in 1955. It tells the story of Corey John, who, on facing his own death, returns to his hometown and recounts the harrowing days of a pivotal summer in his life when he was fourteen years of age. I read this story in one four-hour sitting, and, as a fan of Mark Twain, found it absurdly enjoyable for the similar tone and styles Edgerton employs. The voice is almost autobiographical, and the prose is evocative and rich without ever being stilted. The story itself appears simple at first, but the minute I read a few pages I was drawn in by the character of young Corey and the world and times of the setting.

Corey John lives in a house where his mother is slowly losing her mind to religion and his father physically abuses him. Despite this, Corey is desperate for his father’s love, and dreams of doing anything to become the man his father wishes he were. There’s such an obvious mismatch between father and son, and the conflict that arises from this is both brutal and painful to read. Every time the young boy attempts to please his father something happens to drive them further apart, and the violence that erupts is vicious at times. Even though the logic and worlds of Corey and his father are completely incompatible, you always have this hankering for them to unite. This constant push-and-pull created a tug of war in my head. The way Edgerton wrote this, I couldn’t help but side with both the kid and dad at various times, and as such it made for an uncomfortable read. But this no negative. Certainly not. It is what makes it so sweet. The story pulls no punches, showing parents and kids as real people with a bit of good and bad in them and all the bits in between. Edgerton presents the world as it is without any of that saccharin sweetness that seems to pervade literature and film these days.

The structure of the book is also worth noting. The first and last chapters are set in present day, book-ending the main story-line to create a very satisfying conclusion. By setting the book up in this manner, the tale of fourteen-year-old Corey appears to be no more than a fleeting thought in the older man’s mind. And yet we get to spend time in Freeport with the Texas sun and Jax Beer and Corey and his friend Destin and their maid Inez and it all feels wonderfully real.In the end, The Death of Tarpons is about a boy on the cusp of manhood, finding redemption and strength in himself amidst a world full of violence and good. It may be set in older times, but it’s relevance is timeless. For all these reasons, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I highly recommend it to all.

PUBLICATION DAY FOR THE DEATH OF TARPONS!

Hi folks,

Just found out Endeavour Press (UK) and their literary imprint, Odyssey Press has released my first novel, THE DEATH OF TARPONS, for sale as an ebook. This is the first time it's been available as an ebook, previously available only as a hardcover edition.


It's priced very equitably at $3.99 in the U.S. and the equivalent in the UK. Not only am I stoked that it's now available as an ebook, but that it's one of the first to be published on Endeavour's new literary books imprint. As Endeavour is Europe's biggest publisher of ebook titles, I'm hoping it gains wide sales. If you purchase a copy, please consider leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads and other such venues.

I'm really proud of this book. It's largely autobiographical and was written before I ever took a writing class of any kind. It's my wife Mary's favorite book of those I've written. I have to thank my agent, Svetlana Pironko for selling the ebook version. She's also placed the paperback version with Betimes Books and that'll be forthcoming soon.

A bit of history--in the mid-nineties when I sent it out, it went through 86 rejections. This was in the days of snail mail when you had to not only pay postage to send it to publishers, you also had to pay for return postage in the event of rejection. That was a lot of money, especially for our family which was living day-to-day and sweating out rent. If it wasn't for the faith and support of my wife Mary, I wouldn't have been able to persevere in trying to get it published. Perhaps that's why she loves it so much--she knows the sacrifices we made to get it out there.

Actually, at about the 50th submission, I got a letter from a regional publisher who wanted it and offered a $10,000 advance for it. That was huge money for me at the time and sorely needed. However, I ended up turning it down. The reason? He asked me if it was autobiographical and I told him about 85% of it was but not all of it. He wanted to publish it as autobiography and in good conscience, I couldn't do it. The real clincher for not taking his offer though was that he wanted to cut several scenes, notably one in which the young protagonist's father beats him with a live king snake. This was in the days before even the term "political correctness" had been coined, so I'm proud to say I had good instincts about this odious concept, even then. He wanted to cut it because... ready?... it might offend the snake lovers... Which must be what? Five or six people? That kind of did it... (Very) reluctantly, I withdrew the book from him. Then, as now, money has never been my goal.

For a long while, it looked as if I'd made the dumbest mistake of my life. We went through dozens and dozens of other rejections after that. In fact, it was the  87th submission that finally got taken.

And, that was the result of two fortuitous events.

One: A couple of weeks before it got taken, I was privileged to have the mss of The Death of Tarpons accepted for a workshop in Indianapolis to be held by Mary Evans. Mary is an Indy native and was back home to give a talk and to conduct the workshop for five of us lucky writers.

During the workshop, Mary pulled me aside and told me it was a truly brilliant novel, but that she guessed I was having trouble selling it. Surprised at her insight, I told her it was and she explained why. She said her own client, Michael Chabron, had experienced the same thing she figured I was going through with his own first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburg. That publishers assumed it was a YA just because it had a teenaged protagonist. I was shocked. "But, Mary," I said. "I've never thought of it as a YA at all. Any more than I would call John Knowles' A Separate Peace a YA novel." She agreed, but then gave me a bit of priceless education about publishing. She told me that editors and publishers weren't always the smartest folks around. She said that as soon as they saw a teenaged protagonist, their limited imaginations just automatically put it into a category. And, not only were they seeing it was a YA, they were seeing it as a book aimed at the single worst category for readers--teenaged boys. It's the worst demographic in literature--or, at least it was then in pre-Harry Potter days--as teenaged boys didn't read. While they were the single biggest demographic for movies, they were the single worst for books.

She then gave me the biggest and most useful piece of practical advice I've ever been given in publishing. She advised me to do what she'd advised Michael Chabron to do in the face of similar pigeon-holing. "Just make it a frame book, and you'll get it published," she said. Being young and ignorant, I didn't have a clue what a frame book was so she had to explain it in baby language. I learned that all I needed to do was to add two chapters, a new Chapter 1 and a new ending chapter. In Chapter 1, I needed to begin it as an adult looking back on his life, and in the last chapter, simply bring the narrative back to his adulthood.

And, that's what I did. I created a new beginning, making Corey John  an adult, dying of cancer, revisiting his boyhood home of Freeport, Texas and reliving a particularly bad memory of one tumultuous summer. At the end, I brought him back to that place. In between these two editions, I just stuck the original novel. That was it. All of a sudden, I'd transformed a YA into an adult novel...

That was the first event.

The second was that I sent it to the University of North Texas Press. This will give you a clue as to how many places I'd sent it to, as I sent it out alphabetically to publishers. A press beginning with "U" is kind of near the end of that list... In fact, I'd already made up my mind to never send it out again once I hit 100 places. I'm not sure there were even 14 places left on my list...

What I wasn't aware of was that the University of North Texas Press had never before in their history published any fiction. It shouldn't have even been considered and under normal circumstances wouldn't have been. However, Providence was present that day. The publisher, Fran Vick, had come into her office to begin going through the mound of manuscripts on her desk. As it happened, mine happened to be on top, the first one. Coming through the door to bring her her morning coffee, her assistant tripped and spilled the cup. She apologized and went out to get her another cup.

During that two or three minutes, with nothing to do, Fran idly picked up my manuscript and began idly reading. Well, one of the first things she encountered on the page were the words "Freeport, Texas." This was in my new version with the new frame chapter. Seeing those two words gained her interest. That was simply because that's where Fran was from--where she'd grown up.

She told me all this later. She said she began reading the next page and then the next and before she knew it she was hooked and knew they had to publish it. She gave it to her editor, Charlotte Wright, who liked it as well as Fran did. And, they published and it went on to garner a Special Citation from the Violet Crown Book Awards, a big deal in Texas literary circles. And, nominateed for a hunch of other great awards. Got to attend the First Annual Texas Book Festival and sit with Laura Bush and a bunch of really cool Texas writers and dignitaries.

The point is, absent a chance meeting with probably the only literary agent who had had experience with my kind of book and the kind of problem it was facing, and without a clumsy secretary's spilling coffee (thank you!), and without a publisher being from my own home town and seeing that on the first page, this book would have died. You just never know what little twist of fate will occur that aids in your work being seen by the right person.

Anyway, this kind of the story of this novel and I hope you at least found it interesting if not informative.

Thanks for considering buying my book!

Blue skies,
Les

P.S. One more anecdote... my original title was "Spatterdashers" and it killed me when UNT Press insisted on not using it. Particulary, since the term was the reason I'd even written the book! I'd come across the word in a Paris Review interview and loved it from the initial encounter. Literally, it denoted an item of clothing men used to wear; a legging that "prevented spatter from dashing their trousers." Over time, usage reduced the word to "spats." The reason Fran told me they wouldn't use it because people wouldn't know what it meant. Reluctantly, I bowed to her and she was gracious in letting me pick the alternative title, The Death of Tarpons.

A few months after it came out, Gore Vidal published a book titled, "Palimsest." "Hey!" I asked Fran. How about this? Vidal has a book out titled Palimsest. That's even more obscure than Spatterdashers." She looked at me cooly and said, "Well, he's Gore Vidal... and you're not."

She had a point...

William Joyce honored me with a poem...

Hi folks,

Two days ago, William Joyce (also writing as Guillermo O'Joyce) wrote a poem for me. I can't begin to tell you how honored, humbled and thrilled it has made me. William wrote a book, that for me, was the best novel I've ever read. He's one of the true rebels in literature and in life. He walked with the kings of literature and was one of royalty himself.

Just want to share it with you here. Of all the awards and honors I've received this ranks up there at the top, along with Anthony Neil Smith's book dedication and Joe Lansdale naming me as his favorite crime writer.


William Joyce



Poem

                                        Poem for Edgerton
                               There's you, there's me,                               there's Crotty.                               That's it                               in the whole world.                               Fire, water, wind.                               You, me, Crotty.
                               But say this                                to anyone                               they will get angry,                                scalding angry,                                some will want to fight. 
                               People think they have                                options,                               lots of options                               that keep them                                free                               of the treadmill.
                               In 1928 it was the same.                               all sorts                               of voices                               Pound, Hemingway, Fitzgerald,                               Thomas Mann,                               Pearl Buck and Huck                               Finn, Little Sparrow,                               The Duke, the Count, the Satchmo.                               Culture was everywhere                               as Germany paid off                               its premium                               to the victorious nations.
                               Oct. 24th, 1929, the bottom                               fell out of currency                               and not even                               J.P. Morgan cranked up                               his victrola.                               No one read                               anything.                               They just screamed                               at their mates.                               Oct. 24th, 1929, a lot more                               than currency                               got ditched.
                               Three years later                               there was Celine                               romping                               like a feverish gazelle                               over the broken belly                               of Europe,                               and Miller leaking                               out of a tiny bookstore                               in Paris,                               then Chaplin delighting                               in the catastrophic                               breakdown                               with "Modern Times".
                               Now it is 1928                               all over                               and people are still                               running in place                               in over-priced                                weight-control centers.                                 In 100 years                                they haven't learned                               a thing.                               Haven't learned                                there's fire, wind, and water,                               there's Edgerton, Crotty, and me.


Thank you, William.
Blue skies,Les
P.S. Crotty refers to a close friend of his and mine, Ger Crotty, an Irishman who toils mightily to get William's work read and appreciated.
This is the novel that Neil Smith has dedicated to me. If I die tomorrow, these three honors will be more than enough...