Christopher Tuthill's Blog, page 17
July 25, 2022
Osprey Man Launch
THE OSPREY MAN is cleared for takeoff. D.Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review says: “Osprey Man reveals its surprises, unwrapping them through the course of the story like birthday gifts.” You can order it through the dxvaros website: https://www.dxvaros.com/osprey-man-preorders
To celebrate the release, I’ve uploaded a reading below. Happy summer to all!
June 4, 2022
THE OSPREY MAN discount
May 2, 2022
THE OSPREY MAN
Jacob is at that most magical time between childhood and adolescence. As the end of the school year approaches, he is dreaming of baseball and the beach, but most of all, about working on the comic book he and his best friend Jonathan have created, The Osprey Man. Then tragedy strikes and Jacob has to find an inner strength he is not sure he has.
This beautifully written tale of youth, coping, and working through grief is ideal for readers of all ages.
“Osprey Man reveals its surprises, unwrapping them through the course of the story like birthday gifts.” – D.Donovan, Midwest Book Review
THE OSPREY MAN Pre-Orders
Starting today, you can pre-order my novel, THE OSPREY MAN, at a 30% discount.
Set in 1980s Riverhead, Long Island, and in the tradition of YA novels like Dandelion Wine, this is a book for readers of all ages. I think you’ll have a great time reading this summertime coming of age tale!
April 21, 2022
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April 7, 2022
THE OSPREY MAN cover
Coming 7/26/22 to a bookseller near you!
April 1, 2022
THE OSPREY MAN update
I have some good news–THE OSPREY MAN now has a publisher. The plan right now is for a late July release in paperback and as an ebook across different platforms. I’m working out the details now with the publisher, but am excited to be able to offer the book this way. I’m planning to have some in person events, as well as more content on my blog to support the book. I’ll share more details as they become available. Thanks to the readers who have supported the novel. I will have more soon.
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
―Jorge Luis Borges
March 5, 2022
The Zealot Gene
I’ve been listening a lot to the new Jethro Tull album, and have been so impressed by this one. Ian Anderson has taken inspiration from different books of the bible, as well as some current events, to craft a really wonderful collection of songs. Musically adventurous, with heavy riffs (Mrs. Tibbets) as well as some melancholy acoustic songs (In Brief Visitation), and lyrically dense, this is an album that needs multiple listenings to fully appreciate. I’m so happy it has finally come out, as it was delayed by the pandemic, but it’s certainly been worth the wait.
So why the bible, after all this time? It’s not new ground for Anderson, as fans of Aqualung know. Here we have songs about nuclear war, demagogues, the betrayal of Jesus (‘the fall guy,’ as Anderson calls him). There are references to the Song of Solomon, Eros and Agape, the visitation of Elizabeth, an angry God demanding his people use no graven images, and we wind up, finally, at the Fisherman of Ephesus. Somehow all of this works together over a dizzying forty seven minutes, and leaves you wanting more. Well done, Mr. Anderson, and thank you for keeping us entertained, and keeping us thinking all these years. Gerald Bostock would approve.
It’s hard for me to rank these things, as this has been my favorite band for over thirty years, since I was in high school, but it’s really one of the best albums he has released in all the time I’ve been a fan. Few bands could ever reach the heights that the 70s incarnation of Tull did, but I would rate this in the top half Tull albums, for me certainly at least the equal of albums like Roots to Branches. And here I am on a Saturday night, combing through the King James bible to look up each verse he’s referenced over the album’s twelve songs. Not many other bands require you to do this kind of work, but Ian Anderson always has, it seems.
“Here on my heart, engraved dedication
The fall guy was here, in brief visitation”
February 19, 2022
Adaptations
When novels are adapted into movies, something is always lost in translation. Some interpretations are so poor that they seem to me an insult to the source material, like a horrible cover of John Coltrane by people who have no idea what a saxophone is, or that jazz exists. Some loved Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, and some hated them, and some had mixed feelings. The other day I was visiting a friend in the hospital, and in the background, the most recent version of The Great Gatsby played on the TV and it seemed to me, without even hearing it, that it was a lightweight spectacle, a parody of the novel.
When amazon announced their new Tolkien show, I admit I was immediately skeptical. Last year I was excited when I heard they were adapting Jordan’s Wheel of Time, but the result was underwhelming at best, for a variety of reasons. Jordan was no Tolkien, but the territory is very similar, so it makes me suspicious. Even Roger Corman did a better job with Poe; at least he had Vincent Price and knew how to be scary. I just hope amazon shows more care with Tolkien’s material.
The racism on display when the cast for the Tolkien show was announced is abhorrent and revolting. It’s depressing that trolls came out of the woodwork to say vile things, and they must be denounced. I just want to make it clear that my unease with amazon has nothing to do with casting–it seems they did a great job with a diverse group of actors. I just seriously doubt Amazon’s production has a handle on the material, based on what I saw with Wheel of Time. I guess time will tell what they’ll do. No doubt many who’ve never read Tolkien may enjoy a new fantasy show with lots of effects and glitz, no matter the substance. Amazon’s Man in the High Castle was watchable and pretty good, mostly, so maybe there is hope The Rings of Power will be ok.
On the other hand, none of us should trust amazon with anything, ever. The company is terrible in so many ways you couldn’t list them all, and if they accidentally get this right, it won’t be because they love literature, or Tolkien, so much.
Streaming services are hungry for content, and books like Tolkien’s offer a built in audience with well known and beloved source material. No doubt myriad film versions of literary works will continue to be made. Companies need advertising dollars and subscribers, and people glued to their devices. But do we need such adaptations? Is the ultimate goal of a novelist to get a gigantic motion picture out of the deal? Maybe for some of them, that’s the idea.
This gets into a separate philosophical issue of art and media. We’ll never have a shortage of viewers, but the way things are headed, we may soon have a shortage of good readers. Novels demand something of the reader that movies and television shows never do. Reading requires deep attention and thinking that will reward you in a way that even the best television never will.
Someone once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. We might also say that films about novels are like paintings about sculpture.
January 26, 2022
The Osprey Man review
I just saw a nice review of The Osprey Man on goodreads: “Chris Tuthill crafts a really touching story with very relatable themes here. It’s a vivid coming of age tale of loss and endurance.”
That made my evening!
