Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 56

An Act of Fealty to the Readers

Kneel Before Zod

That’s what Laura Lippmann, author of “When She Was Good,” “I’d Know You Anywhere,” and many more excellent novels with titles I’m jealous I didn’t think of first calls Bouchercon, mystery and crime fiction convention held this year in Cleveland. It’s been around for some time and travels from city to city. When I went to my first con last year, I thought it was about the writers. I wanted to meet them and thank them for writing stories I felt so close to, that shaped my view of the world from an early age, that taught me to look for the puzzle in everyday interactions and the motive behind human cruelty.

And I had a great time. I met a lot of friends who wrote, read, edited, anthologized, published, booksold, agented and copywrote, but what Ms. Lippmann says is correct. There is nothing without the reader. Now, I respect writers of course, and everyone else who puts in hard work getting stories out, but the reader is the reason for all that hard work. And as a writer, or any other link in the chain, you forget that at your peril.

I met a lot of readers there. As a science fiction fan, I went to Creation Cons in New York as a teen and I remember the passion required to travel to a gathering of your heroes and walk up that line figuring out what the hell you want to say so you don’t sound like a stalker. And that passion drives word of mouth, the energy that any book lives on. Respect it. Honor it. Don’t sneer at it like it’s the dumb boss in the office everyone works around. I made some writers roll their eyes when I said that if my fans come carrying 50 Shades of Whatever It is This Week along with my book, I’m not going to sneer and say why the hell you reading that?

I hated hearing booksellers and nascent writers rage about the idiocy of publishing fan fiction. A sharp friend of mine compared it to religion, and she hit the mark. If one day there is fan fiction, slash fiction, or any other passionate crazy expression of love of my own work, I will grin and thank those ever-loving fans for choosing to put their energy into it. If you think that’s pathetic, go to Skywalker Ranch and guffaw at the man who built an empire on it. Nothing will make 50 Shades of Gray a good book. But good writers can learn from it. I know at least three people I respect, who read good and great books, who have read that trilogy. They finished it. And they told me the writing was awful, but they wanted to know how it ended. That’s the underpinning of good writing, the part we don’t always talk about. The lizard brain of fiction. Mrs. James tapped into that. Maybe she can’t write two sentences without mentioning an inner goddess or making her characters murmur instead of SAYING anything, but she got that part right. And the readers liked it.

So if you like cat and craft cozies, or brutal extreme horror, I’m not here to judge you. You’re a reader. I’ve yet to write a cozy, but I love some of them- Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series, Barbara Block’s old pet store detective tales. I read a lot of Miss Marple books when I was a kid. It’s not my thing now, but I get the appeal. And I’m not here to mock it. The act of reading is a sacrifice of the time we have on this earth. It is paying attention to what a total stranger has to say. It is not something given away freely or easily.

Writers should respect that.

Is that kissing ass? You know my feelings on that. I’m not a bullshitter and I don’t kiss ass. If someone asked me what I thought about 50 Shades, or a Dan Brown book, I’ll tell them. Not for me. But I’d sure as hell ask what made them finish the book. And not so I could pander and change the heart of my work to increase sales, but to understand it. And if they already read my work, I wouldn’t feel dirty. 50 Shades readers also love Jeffrey Eugenides. They love John Irving. They love Robert MacCammon. I know this because the three readers I mentioned above recommended those writers to me. So don’t tell me they’re stupid or have terrible taste. Something else is at work here, even if it is as simple as sex appeal.

So zip your lip before you slam a reader. One day they may be yours. A friend of mine overheard a thriller author blast hardboiled stories about alcoholics and beat down unlikely heroes, and I know I’ll never read that guy’s work now. Because I am a reader first, and this pompous fellow insulted my taste, and the fans of an entire subgenre. Instead of reaching across the aisle, he hawked a loogie. He did not come to Bouchercon to pay fealty to readers, but to wallow in our appreciation.

It’s an easy mistake to make. We know writers run on caffeine and compliments. But respect the reader. It’s a good habit, and if you respect them in your writing especially, they’ll fuel you for a lifetime.

Tagged: 50 Shades of Gray, Books, Bouchercon, Laura Lippmann, reading, Writing

Bouchercon 2012

A great time was had by all. Some visual highlights. I have a big post tomorrow about paying back the reader, so here is some eye candy before I ask you to eat your veggies and think about the reader-writer relationship.

That slinky siren on my arm is the magnificent and multitalented Christa Faust. Her novel Choke Hold- one of my top reads last year and still the best story I’ve read with an MMA fighter- was up for an Anthony Award. If you haven’t read her work yet, she is a noir original. Her scientific knowledge of the genre on film and paper gives her work depth and originality, and Choke Hold tells a great story while giving us a peek at the modern gladiators of the American Colosseum: fighters and porn stars.

This is the voracious and adorable creature known as Sabrina Ogden. Like a blonde baby wolverine, she will claw her way through your heart to get to a cupcake. She is eating a donut here, but we also saw her obliterate french toast, bacon, a bacon cheeseburger, quesadillas, mini cupcakes and 42 ounce steak. At least I think it was a steak, it might have been the remains of a rude con-goer. This dear friend is the beneficiary of the Feeding Kate anthology that you so graciously funded on IndieGogo last month.

So yes. she ate all that with jaw damage.

I shared the burger with her because I am dainty.

She blogs and reviews at My Friends Call Me Kate.

That is Johnny Ramone’s guitar and Some of Joey’s jacket. The opening ceremonies were at Cleveland’s Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Sorry if this is the gem of Cleveland, but it’s kind of like a giant Hard Rock cafe. They had a Linkin Park guitar there. I’m not even sure that the Elvis, early R&B and Beatles stuff can erase that indignity. But it was nice to visit it, and they have a giant hot dog that belonged to Phish:

Best meals of the trip? Pierogies at a diner and bratwurst at the casino buffet. There were some fantastic restaurants nearby that served roasted pig heads and the hotel bar made a damn good burger, but this is a Polish town and the good eats of our vowel-challenged brothers Wzsgbgnyzcwz are the finest fare. This was a good bar town as well, with plenty of local beer on tap. The hotel had four Great Lakes beers and I enjoyed them all. The Tilted Kilt (Scottish Hooters) had the double IPA Nosferatu, which kicked ass (or bit neck, perhaps). And speaking of bars:

Noir at the Bar was held at Wonder Bar, a fine establishment with patrons of discriminating taste. Meaning they listened while Snubnose Press authors Eric Beetner, Jonathan Woods, Les Edgerton, John Kenyon, Jedediah Ayres and Josh Stallings read their work. Good beer, better stories. Great time.

Josh and Les are buds whose work I’ve talked about before. Out There Bad by Stallings is like James Crumley’s brutal action film put to paper by a street poet. Edgerton’s career speaks for itself, the heir to Ed Bunker, the real ex-con who writes sharp-edged truth. They are both featured in the Protectors Anthology (link to your right) as well.

Bouchercon was a great time- a celebration hosted by readers where the writers go to pay back. Even the mightiest like Lee Child and Mary Higgins Clark (who I met on the plane, and who was as gracious as you could imagine) mingle with the crowds and are as friendly and approachable as can be. If you enjoy crime fiction, this is your Comicon, except you don’t pay for autographs and you can rub elbows and have a drink with the people you came to see.

I met a lot of new people and had great times with them and the “old” friends I met last year. Glenn Gray and Todd Robinson, Johnny Shaw, Stephen Romano, Neliza Drew, Kent Gowran, Joe Myers… it’s a crime family reunion, and a trip I will gladly make every year.

Tagged: Books, Bouchercon, Choke Hold, Christa Faust, Cleveland, Eric Beetner, Feeding Kate, Glenn Gray, jedediah ayres, Joe Myers, John Kenyon, Johnny Shaw, jonathan woods, Josh Stallings, lee child, Les Edgerton, mary higgins clark, Music, mystery, Noir, Out There Bad, Ramones, reading, Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, Sabrina Ogden, Snubnose Press, Stephen Romano, Todd Robinson, Writing

PANK 47

I’m out and about. Last post before BoucherCon.

The good folks at [PANK] interviewed me about my story in their July issue, “We’re All Guys Here.” We talk Chekhovian endings and guns that have to go off.

I am also at Julianna Baggott’s We Represent the 47 Percent blog, where writers put a human face to folks who have used government help. I went to college with assistance from a Pell Grant. My grandparents went on Relief after an accident. My great-uncle Jimmy is in a VA hospital right now. We all paid back the government’s investment in us many times over.

 

Tagged: Interviews, Julianna Baggott, PANK magazine, Politics, We Represent the 47 Percent, Writing

A Blast from Both Barrels

Shotgun Honey: Both Barrels collects my latest Denny the Dent story and 28 others by some of my favorite writers. Proud to be sharing print with this crew, they won’t let you down. If you like your hardboiled fast and dirty, you know Shotgun Honey is the place to be. This collection blasts through their 700 word limit and gives this cavalry of maniacs full rein. Get some.

Kindle

Trade Paperback

The full roster:

Andrew Nette – King Tut’s Tomb

Cameron Ashley – The Blonde Chimera

Chris Holm – Not Forgotten

Dan O’Shea – Father’s Day

Frank Bill – The Jade Bounty

Frank Wheeler Jr. – Tapdancing for Idiots

Garnett Elliott – Chicken Soup for the Hole

Glenn Gray – Intubation

Hector Acosta – Jueves

Holly West – Regrets Only

Jen Conley – Escape

Jim Wilsky – Traffick

Joe Myers – Cold Read

Julia Madeleine – Rage

Keith Rawson – 2 Kilograms of Soul

Kieran Shea – The Judgement of Roland J. Monroe

Matthew C. Funk – Lovely Men

Michael Oliveri – The Wrench in Her Works

Naomi Johnson – Hero

Nigel Bird – Rhythm of Life

Nik Korpon – The Owls

Patti Abbott – How to Launder a Shirt

Paul D. Brazill – Gareth and Fiona Go Abroad

Peter Farris – Cut. Copy. Paste. Delete

Ray Banks – The Warmest Room

Steve Weddle – The Awakening: From the Cyborg Lesbian Vampire Chronicles

Thomas Pluck – Train: A Denny the Dent Story

Tom Pitts – Luck

Trey R. Barker – A Good Boy

11 years without Joey Ramone

It’s hard to believe that 11 years ago our nation suffered a terrible blow from which we can never truly recover. In April 2011, Joey Ramone gabba gabba heyed into the great rock’n roll beyond.

My friend Peter introduced me to the Ramones. I’d heard a song here and there- Sheena is a Punk Rocker, Rock Rock Rock Rock Rock’n Roll High School- but he lent me RAMONES MANIA, the double LP greatest hits album with its day-glo yellow cover. I must’ve flipped those discs a billion times. We rented Rock ‘n Roll High School from Curry’s Home Video, a video store for suburban New Jersey akin to Kim’s in NYC, who had everything from Kubrick to Pink Flamingos. It informed us on such things as irony and camp and the stunning sexual energy of P.J. Soles.

And it make gawky, lanky, bemopped Jeffrey Hyman look like the coolest black leather zombie in creation.

The Ramones were a fresh take on ’50s rock after the indulgence of the ’70s era. Second verse, same as the first. Lyrics ripped from low budget movies like Tod Browning’s Freaks and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They could blister the paint of the walls, then switch to sweet melody like “I met her at the Burger King/ Fell in love by the soda machine” in “Oh Oh I Love Her So.” Their newest album was Halfway to Sanity, with “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg,” which gave Reagan a brutal skewering for saying the German soldiers buried at Bitburg were “victims as surely as those in the concentration camps.” (Now, not every German was a Nazi, and plenty of soldiers die not believing in the country for which they fight, but at the time, veterans groups were staunchly against forgiveness, and so were a lot of other people.)

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If there’s one thing that makes me sick

it’s when someone tries to hide behind politics

But the Ramones weren’t about politics, which is what made their one foray into it so stinging. They were about having a good time, and their songs never feel mean-spirited, even when they want to “Smash You” or beat on the brat with a baseball bat. There’s an unspoken but obvious humor in it.

They were a great cover band, from Tom Waits’ “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” to “Needles & Pins” and versions of “California Sun” and “Surfin’ Bird” that will give you sunburn at thirty paces, like being too close to a nuclear blast. However my all-time favorite is from Joey’s solo career, when he covered Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” He makes it a rock song but imbues it with the same sense of hope.

Joey’s solo album is pretty good, and very funny. He wrote a song about being hot for Maria Bartiromo, the financial news anchor, which still cracks me up. Their songs were rarely about sex, but about the goofy innocent love of the ’50s. Today your love, tomorrow the world.

I regret never seeing the Ramones in concert. Joey is buried in the same cemetery as my grandmother, and I work nearby. So I give them both a visit during lunch hour, sometimes. I miss them both, and memories of them bring me joy.

Here’s the video for “What a Wonderful World,” which stars a young Michael Pitt.

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Tagged: death, Grams, Joey Ramone, Music, Ramones, Song in my Head This Week

Ads Gone! (brought to by Brown-25)

Sorry for the ads. I use an ad blocker and had no idea how obnoxious WordPress was getting with them. Like you really wanted to see the Jennifer Aniston security video, when reading about a bareknuckle fight in Appalachia. With the ad placement, Google they ain’t…

Anyhow, I plunked down the smackers to remove the ads, and I apologize if they were overbearing.

This post brought to you by Brown-25. Remember… good things come from Uranus.

If you haven’t seen The Groove Tube, you’re missing out on the original sketch comedy movie of the ’70s which inspired Fridays, Saturday Night Live, and so much more.

Tagged: advertising, poop, The Groove Tube

Rip-roaring through the holler

Jay Desmarteaux’s debut in “The Rockridge Ringer” … a bareknuckle fighter forced into combat by a crooked sheriff. The cover evokes the classic pulps and men’s adventure paperbacks. I love it. I’ve had a peek at Amber Keller’s tale of running moonshine too, and I know you’ll love this collection of red-blooded tales rip-roaring through the hollers.

Frank Larnerd did a great job putting this one together. He nudged me to contribute, and I think this story really helped me envision the character and mood I want to set with the Desmarteaux novels.

Tagged: Amber Keller, Appalachia, Books, Frank Larnerd, Hills of Fire, Jason Stuart, Jay Desmarteaux, Steve Rasnic Tem, Woodland Press, Writing

The Edward Gorey House

I’ve been a fan of Edward Gorey’s macabre little books since my friend Peter introduced me to the Gashlycrumb Tinies back in high school. Gorey drew twisted little figures in a creepy mirror of the bored and insulated world of New England’s idle rich. From the bizarre penguin-like creature in tennis shoes who shows up for dinner in “The Doubtful Guest,” to poor Millicent Frastley abducted in the dark of night to be sacrificed to “The Insect God,” he managed to evoke a frightening and wonderful world that seemed to spring from disturbing childhood daydreams.



He was an eccentric cat-lover who wore an ankle-length raccoon coat and tennis shoes, and is likely most famous for designing the gothic animation sequence to PBS’s “Mystery!” series and the stage design for the play of “Dracula,” starring Frank Langella. His figures have a wispy quality, as if they sprung from the infamous Puritan gravestones littering New England warning the living that all flesh is grass, and God is firing up the Toro any moment now.



His house is everything one might expect. It looks perfectly normal at first, but something is off. It is about to be devoured by an enormous Southern Magnolia tree overtaking the backyard, a plant that shouldn’t even be able to survive, much less thrive, on the deltoid of Cape Cod’s atrophied bicep. The cut-out of a plump tabby in a sweater welcomes you, and a wrought iron “Doubtful Guest” tiptoes through the back yard, strangled with vines, like a living topiary beast. Fans and friends have decorated his yard with all sorts of homages to his work, such as tombstones to the Gashlycrumb Tinies and an enormous sperm whale painted with his work.



The house itself is crammed with the odd ephemera he collected, from old cheese graters to matchbooks, with shelves and walls plastered with his work. The Tinies are immortalized in a scavenger hunt game, with all 26 of the ghastly alphabet undoings hidden around the house- from poor Basil assaulted by bears, to Nevile, who died of ennui, peering from a hidden window. The museum is run by fans and friends of the late Mr. Gorey, who keep his twee and morbid spirit alive. I purchased a few books and gifts in the gift shop, and a delightful print that I plan to hang over my bookcase, which reads “Some Things Are Scary.”



Words to live by. Some things are scary, and we delight in the thrill of seeing them from a safe distance. In Gorey’s tales, we get uncomfortably close to twisted people and banal horrors. While the Addams Family were the odd ones on the block, Gorey’s world mirrored our own in that something scary was just beneath the surface.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies

Visit The Edward Gorey House website.

Tagged: Art, Books, Cats, Edward Gorey, Gashlycrumb Tinies, Horror, Massachusetts, Museums, Travel

Noir Nation no.2

My story “Tiger Mother,” about an angry mother in ’50s Harlem hunting down her errant teen son, appears in Noir Nation no.2 by Bareknuckles Press. They pack together quite a lineup in this excellent journal. And the noir nation is truly international. Read on for all the contributors.

Issue No. 2 is rich with stories that tell of being stopped at a tense Israeli checkpoint, a man reflecting on the death of his sadistic mother while getting a tattoo, hunting jaguars in the Chimalapas jungle, a fatal conversation between a married couple on a Japanese mountain cliff, the consummation of a macabre wedding in Tangiers, a German psychopath who thinks himself a werewolf, a missing prostitute in Cambodia’s red light district, a Boston businessman trying to survive a murderous economy, barroom pickups that turn deadly, soldiers captured in World War II taking grisly revenge on their guards, the renovation of a theater that hides a crime, a pistol-packing Harlem grandmother who fends for her young, a road trip from New Orleans to Vancouver that ends in a Pulp Fiction style shootout, and hitchhikers who should have kept hiking.

Contributors hail from no less than sixteen countries: Finland, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Israel, Cuba, Canada, Columbia, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Entries include stories by classic noir writers such as Edogawa Rampo, considered by many the father of Japanese crime fiction; Paul Calderon, an actor who appears regularly on the television show Law & Order and who played Paul the bartender in the film Pulp Fiction; and first-time authors Mary Therese Gattuso, Hubert Osprey, and Pierce Loughran.

Afficionados of hardboiled crime noir will see new works by Nick Arvin, Ray Banks, Paul Calderon, Atar Hadari, Sophie Jaff, Susan Lercher,  Julia Madeleine, Court Merrigan,  Joe L. Murr, Andrew Nette, Thomas Pluck, Victor Quintas, Stephen D. Rogers, Ulrike Rudolf,  Bob Thurber, Ruben Varona, Corinna Underwood, and Tom Vater.

The issue also contains an interview with Madison Smartt Bell talking about blowing his knees with Tae Kwon Do and the influence on his fiction by Harry Crews, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and Dostoyevsky. And darkly disturbing entries from 400-year-old London’s Criminal Court logs that show how little has changed in the human drive to murder, maim, and enslave others.

Tattoo photos by Miguel Angel, Madeline Keller-Yunes, Julia Madeleine, Ilya Shchanikov, Shaireproductions.com, Aroon Thaewchatturat, and Chris Willis.

Translations by Andrew Kirk, Rowena Galavitz, Mary Tannert, and Eddie Vega.

Now available from Amazon US, Amazon UK and B&N.

Tagged: Noir Nation, Writing

Metric – Breathing Underwater

The song stuck in my head this week is Metric’s “Breathing Underwater” from their album Synthetica, which has a few other good singles like “Youth without Youth.” I also like their first album, Fantasies, which has “Help I’m Alive” and “Gold Guns Girls.” I think I might see if they’re on vinyl.

Another band I’m getting back into are the Subhumans from Canada, who’ll get their own post soon. They have quite a history, and for my money, they wrote the catchiest punk songs. Like the Ramones with the politics of the Dead Kennedys. I’ll post about them next week. I’m going to try to catch up on the foodie and literary part of my vacation. We visited the homes of Edward Gorey, Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Lucy Maud, and ate the heart out of Maine and Prince Edward Island.

 

Tagged: Music, Song in my Head This Week