Curtis Edmonds's Blog, page 14

WREATHED – First Chapter

Chapter 1

It was seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening, and I was stuck at the office. I had been working ten hours a day since my last vacation, four months ago. This was just as pathetic as it sounds. I could have been having a nice dinner with friends, or using my long-neglected gym membership, or even sitting on my couch in my pajamas watching real estate shows. But I wasn’t. I was at my desk, staring at a computer screen, engaged in the necessary but mind-draining and butt-numbing chore of proofreading legal documents. Just another fun-filled day in the life of Wendy Jarrett, Attorney at Law.

The advantage of working this late was that it minimized distractions. But after three straight hours reading page after page of legal boilerplate, I found myself glancing at my phone, hoping that it might generate a distraction or two. Maybe an old friend from college was in town for the evening and wanted to hang out. Maybe a cute guy had seen me walking across the courthouse square this afternoon and was about to text me and to take me out for drinks and conversation and maybe a little romance. Maybe the anonymous creeper I had been dominating in Words With Friends over the last month was secretly a gorgeous billionaire who was waiting downstairs to whisk me away to a life of luxury and ease. None of these potential distractions were, shall we say, realistic, but at that particular moment anything had to be better than sitting all by myself in an empty law office in Morristown, New Jersey, and comparing two separate sixty-page wills for typos and inconsistencies.

I did get a distraction in the form of a phone call from my mother. That could only mean that something horrible had happened.

I do my best to keep in touch with my mother, but that means that I’m the one who has to call her nearly every single time. This is partly because she has a misplaced sense of old-money frugality about long-distance phone calls, but mostly it is her passive-aggressive way of getting me to communicate with her more frequently. So I call her on alternate Sunday afternoons, unless I’m on vacation, or unless I’m snowed under with work, or unless I drank so much chardonnay the night before that I lose the ability to claw my way out of bed. We have a nice little conversation, which occasionally touches on topics of parental concern such as why I drink so much chardonnay. Then I hang up, and she hangs up, and that’s it for parent-child communication for another fortnight.

The only reason my mother ever breaks this pattern and calls me is if something horrible has happened. I couldn’t imagine another reason why she would call me at work at seven in the evening on a random weekday. It meant that someone was in the hospital, or someone was dead, or aliens from Alpha Centauri had landed in central New Jersey looking for Orson Welles. And the only way to find out the nature of this particular disaster was to pick up the phone.

I looked at the phone. I looked at my computer screen. Whatever it was that had gone so badly off the rails that it had prompted Mother to call me couldn’t be that much worse than having to read another line of boring legalese. I picked up the phone.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, not without some trepidation.

“Hi yourself,” she said. “Are you at work? I tried calling you at home, but the call went to voicemail.”

“Yes, I’m still at work. I have clients coming in tomorrow for an estate-planning meeting and I’m just proofreading the new version of their wills to make sure everything matches up.”

“So you haven’t eaten,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I have a hot date with a frozen dinner.”

“I know you’re busy, dear daughter, but could I impose on you to take me out to dinner? Nothing on today’s menu is looking good to me.”

My mother lived in an exclusive senior community in central New Jersey, about twenty miles south of Morristown. “Senior community,” for most people, means a place where you warehouse old people and make them play shuffleboard and serve them gray institutional meals. This place was more upscale, with organized bus tours and nature walks and what I guess you could call a political action committee. And the food, at least to hear my mother talk about it, was impressive. They served healthy, nutritionally balanced meals that were accompanied by gooey cheesecakes and crispy apple strudels and large, soft mounds of ice cream. I had never, not once, heard my mother issue even the smallest complaint about the food, which was so unlike her that I suspected that the kitchen staff had developed an amazing magical cooking prowess unknown to the rest of humanity. I wished I knew their secret—not so much because I wanted to learn how to cook, but because I wanted to know how to insulate myself from maternal criticism.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked.

“Of course, dear. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just that this seems kind of an unusual time for you to call me, that’s all. I thought something might be wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I just can’t bear the sight of my fellow residents here for another minute, and I don’t feel like imposing on your sister right at the moment.” When Mother retired, she’d moved to the same town where my older sister, Pacey, and her husband and twin sons lived. Pacey has many fine qualities, but she’s not much of a cook, and I could understand why Mother would rather have me take her out to a restaurant instead.

“As much as I would like to join you for dinner, I’m right in the middle of something,” I said. “If I stop now, I am going to obsess over it all night and then have to start all over in the morning from the beginning.”

“Wendy, please listen to your mother for once. Whatever these people are paying you, they are not paying you enough to sit around and proofread paperwork at seven in the evening.”

I thought about explaining, once again, the economics of law firm billing, but I kept my mouth shut. One of my mother’s less endearing qualities is the ability to filter out explanations for things that she does not want explained to her. That encompasses any excuses I might have for not going out to dinner with her when she wanted to go out to dinner with me.

“All right,” I said. “You caught me at a weak moment. Let me close up everything here and I’ll be there in half an hour or so. Think about where you want to go eat.”

“That would be lovely.”

This all sounds too easy, I thought. Something else must be going on, or there is some ulterior motive she’s not telling me about. I had no idea what it could be but at least I wouldn’t have to eat that rubbery microwave lasagna that had been hanging in the back of my freezer for months.

“OK,” I said. “See you in a few.”

Five minutes later, I pulled my Audi out of the parking garage, made my way through Morristown, and headed south on the highway. Traffic was sparse, so I shifted gears and merged into the fast lane, passing the slow-moving trucks like so many barges in the wake of a speedboat. Not that I had a speedboat. I had a ten-year-old German convertible and a studio apartment and a giant heaving mound of debt from law school.

The Audi was not my first choice. My first choice had been a MetroCard, and a small apartment in a good neighborhood in Manhattan. After graduation, I’d spent four months looking for a job with a Wall Street law firm. My plan was to work my way up to the kind of job and the kind of office that Michael Douglas had in Wall Street. I’d been in two great summer associates’ programs in 2007 and 2008, and I imagined I was well on my way up the glittering path to a rewarding career, easy money, and a cute boyfriend who looked like a young Charlie Sheen but who didn’t do drugs or sell out small regional airlines in insider trading scams. But the economy cratered during my last year in law school, and all of the smart, engaging, helpful people I’d met in Manhattan during my summer programs were too busy trying to keep themselves afloat to help me get a job. Then I made the stupid mistake of taking the New York and New Jersey bar exams at the same time—and when I passed New Jersey but failed New York, I ended up stuck looking for work on the wrong side of the Hudson.

The best job I could find was with a boutique firm in Morristown, doing wills and estate planning. I was lucky to get the job in the first place, and I was lucky to still have it five years later. I gave up on Manhattan and the small apartment in the good neighborhood and the MetroCard. I found an apartment five minutes from my office, and a used convertible with a hairline crack in the windshield and a big chip of paint missing on the trunk lid.

I didn’t need the car and I didn’t need the additional debt that went along with it. But if I couldn’t live in Manhattan, I at least wanted to be able to cruise down Seventh Avenue or the Jersey Shore or a narrow country road in the Poconos. I wanted the freedom to drive away as far and as fast as I could go anytime the mood struck. For the first couple of years, it worked out all right. But lately, I spent more and more of my weekends stretched out on my couch, catching up on sleep or work or whatever else was more important than getting in my car and driving somewhere and having fun. Worse, even if I did find the energy to drive somewhere and have fun, I didn’t have anyone to have fun with.

I kept the Audi in high gear until it was time to decide whether to exit off the highway and keep driving somewhere else. I wanted to keep dodging traffic until I had outrun all my problems. But I knew it wouldn’t work, and anyway, I was hungry. I pulled off the highway and made my way south.

Are Neutral Site Games Workable?

Let’s start off with the idea, which I uncritically love:

The regular season should be a 19-week, 17-game schedule, with each team having eight home games, eight away games, two bye weeks and one neutral-site game.

Yes! That would be fun. But what the article doesn’t say is where these sixteen neutral-site games should be played. Obviously, some percentage of them will be played in London, but you can’t play all of them there. And you can’t really play them at a site where there are fewer seats than your average NFL stadium. That means that you’re almost exclusively talking about the large college stadiums.

I based this off a Wikipedia list of large stadiums (complain to them if this is wrong), with my own comments attached. I am basing a lot of the comments on this Twitter map of NFL fandom.

Rank
Stadium
>Capacity
City
Country
Would this be a suitable neutral site?




1
Michigan Stadium
109,901[1]
Ann Arbor
USA
No, too close to Detroit.


2
Beaver Stadium
106,572[2]
University Park
USA
Might work for a Steelers-Eagles match, but that isn’t really any kind of a rivalry.


3
Kyle Field
106,511
College Station
USA
You could have a Cowboys-Texans match here, but would you rather be in College Station or in Austin or San Antonio? Thought so.


4
Ohio Stadium
104,944[3]
Columbus
USA
No–Browns and Bengals are division rivals, and they’re the only ones who make sense.


5
Estadio Azteca
104,000[4]
Mexico City
Mexico
Yes – international venue, same as with London, so you could stick whatever teams make sense here.


6
Neyland Stadium
102,459[5]
Knoxville
USA
No – firmly in Titans territory.


7
Tiger Stadium
102,321[6]
Baton Rouge
USA
No – firmly in Saints territory.


8
Bryant-Denny Stadium
101,821[7]
Tuscaloosa
USA
No – Saints and Falcons in same division. (Maybe Saints-Titans or Falcons-Titans.)


9
Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium
100,119[8]
Austin
USA
Yes – Cowboys-Texans.


10
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
93,607[9][10]
Los Angeles
USA
Yes – you could do this geographically or not, depending. (Unless the Rams or Raiders move back.)


11
Sanford Stadium
92,756[11]
Athens
USA
No – Panthers and Falcons in same division.


12
Rose Bowl
92,542[12]
Pasadena
USA
Same as the Coliseum.


13
Cotton Bowl
92,100
Dallas
USA
No – firmly in Cowboys territory.


14
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
88,548[13]
Gainesville
USA
Yes – Dolphins-Falcons or Falcons-Jaguars could work.


15
Jordan-Hare Stadium
87,451[14]
Auburn
USA
Same as Tuscaloosa.


16
Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium
83,500
Tallahassee
USA
Same as Gainesville.


17
MetLife Stadium
82,500
East Rutherford
USA
The only NFL stadium where you could do one, in fact.


18
Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
82,112
Norman
USA
Yes – Cowboys-Chiefs.


19
Memorial Stadium
82,000
Clemson
USA
No – firmly in Panthers territory.


20
FedExField
82,000[15]
Landover
USA
NFL stadium


21
Memorial Stadium
81,067
Lincoln
USA
In theory you could do Broncos-Vikings, but why?


22
Lambeau Field
80,978
Green Bay
USA
NFL stadium


23
Notre Dame Stadium
80,795
Notre Dame
USA
YES. Bears-Colts. I hate Notre Dame but I think this would be cool.


24
Camp Randall Stadium
80,321
Madison
USA
No – Packers and Vikings in same division.


25
Pontiac Silverdome
80,311
Pontiac
USA
 HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.


26
Williams-Brice Stadium
80,250
Columbia, South Carolina
USA
No – firmly in Panthers territory.


27
AT&T Stadium
80,000[16]
Arlington
USA
NFL stadium


28
Arrowhead Stadium
77,000
Kansas City
USA
NFL stadium


29
EverBank Field
76,867
Jacksonville
USA
NFL stadium


30
Sun Life Stadium
76,500
Miami Gardens
USA
NFL stadium


31
Sports Authority Field at Mile High
76,125
Denver
USA
NFL stadium


32
Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium
76,000
Fayetteville
USA
No – firmly in Cowboys territory.


33
Spartan Stadium
75,005
East Lansing
USA
No – firmly in Lions territory.


34
Ralph Wilson Stadium
73,967
Orchard Park
USA
NFL stadium


35
Bank of America Stadium
73,778
Charlotte
USA
NFL stadium


36
Sun Devil Stadium
73,379
Tempe
USA
NFL stadium (former)


37
Mercedes-Benz Superdome
73,208
New Orleans
USA
NFL stadium


38
FirstEnergy Stadium
73,200
Cleveland
USA
NFL stadium


39
Husky Stadium
72,500
Seattle
USA
No – firmly in Seahawks territory.


40
Legion Field
71,594
Birmingham
USA
Same as other Alabama stadiums.


41
Reliant Stadium
71,500
Houston
USA
NFL stadium


42
Qualcomm Stadium
71,294
San Diego
USA
NFL stadium


43
Georgia Dome
71,228
Atlanta
USA
NFL stadium


44
M&T Bank Stadium
71,008
Baltimore
USA
NFL stadium


45
Faurot Field
71,004
Columbia, Missouri
USA
Yes – Chiefs-Rams, perhaps.


46
Kinnick Stadium
70,585
Iowa City
USA
No – firmly in Bears territory


47
Candlestick Park
70,207
San Francisco
USA
Demolished


48
Citrus Bowl
70,000
Orlando
USA
Yes – Buccaneers-Dolphins.


49
LP Field
68,798
Nashville
USA
NFL stadium


50
Gillette Stadium
68,756
Foxborough
USA
NFL stadium


51
Lincoln Financial Field
68,532
Philadelphia
USA
NFL stadium


52
Commonwealth Stadium
67,606
Lexington
USA
No – firmly in Bengals territory


53
CenturyLink Field
67,000
Seattle
USA
NFL stadium


54
Edward Jones Dome
66,965
St. Louis
USA
NFL stadium


55
Olympic Stadium
66,308
Montreal
Canada
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. No.


56
Lane Stadium
66,233
Blacksburg
USA
In theory you could put a Redskins-Steelers game here, but…


57
Raymond James Stadium
65,857
Tampa
USA
NFL stadium


58
Paul Brown Stadium
65,790
Cincinnati
USA
NFL stadium


59
Heinz Field
65,050
Pittsburgh
USA
NFL stadium


60
Alamodome
65,000
San Antonio
USA
Again, Cowboys-Texans.



Ford Field
65,000
Detroit
USA
NFL stadium


62
Yale Bowl
64,246
New Haven
USA
I can’t imagine it.


63
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
64,111
Minneapolis
USA
Soon to be demolished.


64
LaVell Edwards Stadium
64,045
Provo
USA
In theory, you could put a Broncos-Seahawks game here.


65
University of Phoenix Stadium
63,400
Glendale
USA
NFL stadium


66
Estadio Olímpico Universitario
63,186[17]
Mexico City
Mexico
I think you’d go with the bigger stadium in Mexico.


67
O.co Coliseum
63,026
Oakland
USA
NFL stadium


68
Lucas Oil Stadium
63,000
Indianapolis
USA
NFL stadium


69
Kenan Memorial Stadium
62,980
Chapel Hill
USA
No – clearly in Panthers territory.


70
Memorial Stadium
62,872
Champaign
USA
No – clearly in Bears territory.


71
California Memorial Stadium
62,717
Berkeley
USA
No – clearly in 49ers territory.


72
Ross-Ade Stadium
62,500
West Lafayette
USA
No – clearly in Colts territory.


73
Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium
62,380
Memphis
USA
Yes – Titans-Rams.


74
Scott Stadium
61,500
Charlottesville
USA
Not seeing it.



Soldier Field
61,500
Chicago
USA
Smallest NFL stadium.

So, what this tells us is that the vast overwhelming majority of large stadiums that could be potential neutral sites aren’t that neutral. And a lot of them that would be cool (Vikings-Packers in Madison, yay!) don’t work from a scheduling perspective because the teams are in the same division. Nerts.

But what would you be if you didn’t try? You HAVE to try.

Let’s try this. Group each NFL team, to the extent possible, with a natural rival from the other conference:

NFC
AFC
Possible Neutral Sites
Would that be fun?


Cardinals
Chargers
Las Vegas
YES.


Rams
Chiefs
Columbia, Missouri
No.


Seahawks
Broncos
Provo
No.


Niners
Raiders
Berkeley
I think you’d have too many arrests.


Bears
Colts
South Bend
YES.


Lions
Browns
Akron
YES. LeBron can flip the coin.


Packers
Bengals
London
Revenge for the Spice Girls.


Cowboys
Texans
Austin
YES. Willie Nelson can flip the coin.


Saints
Titans
Tuscaloosa
YES. Someone give Warren St. John a ticket.


Falcons
Jaguars
Jacksonville
YES, but ONLY if you do it the same week as Florida-Georgia. (Jacksonville counts as a neutral site anyway.)


Buccaneers
Dolphins
Orlando
YES, but only if you play it in Shamu Stadium.


Panthers
Patriots
London
No.


Redskins
Ravens
The National Mall
YES. Make the Washington Monument the 50-yard-line. (Or Annapolis, that works.)


Eagles
Steelers
Happy Valley
Hell no.


Giants
Jets
Parking lot, Met Life Stadium
YES. Or Central Park. Or Yankee Stadium. DO THIS THING.


Vikings
Bills
Barbados
Two cold-weather teams with no Super Bowls deserve a chance to have their fans take a nice tropical vacation, DON’T YA THINK.

Is that everybody? I think that’s everybody. BALL’S IN YOUR COURT, GOODELL.

A Brief Note on Self-Promotion

In case you might not have noticed, I have a new book coming out next week.

It’s a nice thing to say, and to be able to tell people. “I have a new book coming out next week.” And, of course, you have to tell people, because (as it happens) people are the ones who buy books, and you want people to buy books if you are an author. Because, if nobody ever bought books (and we’re getting closer to this than anyone expects) no one would write books. Buying books makes authors happy, but buying books makes authors necessary. 

I want you to buy my book (you know, the one that comes out next week). To do that, I have to let you know that the book exists, and that I wrote it. This requires what is somewhat euphemistically called “promotion” and should be known as “Hold still while I get you your credit card so you can buy my book, they’re soft restraints, they won’t hurt a bit unless you struggle, STOP DOING THAT.”

Promotion is bad. Promotion means commercials and advertising and propaganda and all sorts of bad things. Promotion is capitalism reduced to the level of a five-year-old whining child. “I want an Elsa doll, there’s a Toys R Us, can we go there now, please please, pretty please? Why not? IT’S NOT FAIR.” (Actual quotes, somewhat paraphrased, original in stereo.) Everyone, at some level, hates promotion, largely because we’re exposed to it so often and because it’s so prevalent, and (most of the time) because it’s so poorly done.

But there is, quite literally, no substitute for it. And, worse, when you’re an “author-publisher,” which is a euphemism for “self-published author,” which is basically saying “I wrote a book and no sane and reasonable person with the adequate expertise would agree to publish it, so I did it myself and SUCK IT, GATEKEEPERS,” then you have to do all of it yourself. This is called self-promotion.

This is difficult. The famous Chuck Wendig piece on rejection says that dealing with the reality of rejection is like saying, “Eventually you’re going to have to fistfight a bear,” Dealing with the reality of self-promotion is like saying, “Eventually, you’re going to have to put on a floppy hat and big shoes and stand in the middle of Penn Station doing  a Mexican hat dance while passerby pelt you with fruit.”

I don’t like doing self-promotion. I don’t like it because it’s intrusive and annoying and it primarily reaches out to one’s friends. I don’t like it because it’s usually ineffective. I don’t like doing it because (let’s face it) I am still somewhat, you know, embarrassed about self-publishing and having to do it and not being good enough to be published by traditional means. And I don’t like self-promotion because I am not good at it.

More than anything else, though, I don’t like self-promotion because I don’t want to do it. Not that I don’t think I’m too good to do it, or that I am so awesome that I don’t need to do it. I don’t enjoy it. It is like eating broccoli with cauliflower sauce. And no matter how much you do it–how many tweets you tweet, how many review requests you make–it isn’t enough. It isn’t ever enough.

So I’m not doing it here, not in this post. If you want to find the book, it isn’t hard. If you want to read it, I would appreciate it. If you can review it, or tell others, that’s wonderful. But I’m going to take a moment here to apologize for doing so much self-promotion, to promise not to be a jerk about doing it in the future, and to try to remind myself that my self-worth is not based on how many books I sell.

 

Goodreads Giveaway for WREATHED

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Goodreads Book Giveaway







Wreathed



by Curtis Edmonds

Giveaway ends October 31, 2014.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Cover Reveal for WREATHED

Here it is, and it’s just lovely. Click on the cover to get the full-size version; and there’s a big version at the bottom of the post as well.

WREATHED will be officially released on November 4. You can (and should!) preorder WREATHED at the Kindle store on Amazon, and at the Nook store on Barnes & Noble, and on iTunes if you have an Apple device. At this time, you can only get the print version on Amazon. And you can mark it as to-be-read on Goodreads. These are all good things!

The cover art is by Dangerdust, who you may remember from this Buzzfeed article that went viral. You can find their other work on Instagram and Twitter and Tumblr, and you can buy their stuff on Etsy.

So, happy cover reveal day to me! Hooray!

Cool New Review of WREATHED

It’s so nice to get the first real review out of the way, and this one is very nice:

I applaud the author for creativity, as I don’t recall ever reading a book with a similar plot. This is a fantastic book for the reader who is looking for something different, with a little mystery, a little romance and a lot of uniqueness. I have not read anything else by the author, but will keep an eye out for his works. If they are half as good as this one, I am sure I will enjoy them. I guess, by now, you have realized I loved this book and recommend it to everyone looking for a good, different read.

Good reviews make writers happy.

Agents of T.A.L.O.N.

This is actually a nice place you picked out. It’s not the best Thai food I’ve ever had, mind you–nothing like what you can get in Bangkok. But you can’t get a decent hot dog there to save your life, so it kind of balances out.

I’m glad we have the chance to talk outside of the office.

Look, I don’t have to tell you that there is trouble in the Organization. You, of all people, know the problem that we’re up against. There are traitors in our midst, Jeremy, and you and I both know how important it is to root them out. You may not realize it, but in your role in Human Resources, you’re every bit as vital as any of our field agents. When I’m meeting a contact in Bangkok, it’s not enough for me to know the person I’m talking to is a fellow P.R.O.T.E.C.T. agent. If that person’s a traitor, then that puts my life in danger, and potentially the lives of innocent people. I need to know that Human Resources is doing everything it can to identify traitors throughout the Organization.

Yeah, I’ve been to Bangkok three or four different times. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this is a great place you picked for lunch, but the Thai food you get in Thailand is so much better than what they have in Washington. But you can’t get a decent burger there, so it balances.

Anyway, look. I think the Director has been overlooking Human Resources as a possible source of counterintelligence about the traitors. And when I’m talking about traitors, you understand, I’m talking about the C.A.B.A.L. They’ve been working for years to undermine everything that P.R.O.T.E.C.T. stands for. I think we can use your files to identify where they have us infiltrated.

You got the green curry, right? Is it a little overcooked? Because that’s what it looks like. Mine is fine, but they overdid it a little with the coconut.

I know the Director thinks the focus should be on T.A.L.O.N. I’m not so sure about that. Now, I’m just a humble field agent, you understand, but I’m the one on the sharp end of the spear. I know what people say about T.A.L.O.N., but I think the threat they pose is overblown. The C.A.B.A.L. wants to destroy the Organization. T.A.L.O.N. just wants to take the Organization in a slightly different direction, that’s all. More focus on efficiency, less focus on propping up an unjust American foreign-policy apparatus. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?

How do I know so much about it? That’s a great question, Jeremy. It shows insight. If we could get an iced tea refill over here, that would be great. Thanks.

The first thing to realize is that everything you’ve been told about T.A.L.O.N. is a lie. Agents who’ve joined T.A.L.O.N. aren’t traitors. They’re P.R.O.T.E.C.T. agents, like you and me, who share our concern about where the Director is taking the Organization. If you knew the truth about what the Organization was doing in Venezuela right now, Jeremy, it would give you more indigestion than that green curry you’re eating.

How long have I been in T.A.L.O.N.? You’re just full of great questions, there, Jeremy. I’m not going to confirm if I’m in T.A.L.O.N. or not. But you don’t have to officially join T.A.L.O.N. to be sympathetic as to what they are trying to achieve. Sure, their methods can be a little drastic. You might not agree with their politics. I wasn’t a big fan of everything they did with the Sri Lanka situation. You can get good Ceylonese food here, by the way, if you know where to look.

What I can tell you is that if you join T.A.L.O.N., you’ll be welcomed. Enthusiastically. Because T.A.L.O.N. is looking for whatever foothold it can get in Human Resources so it can get the data it needs to take the fight to the C.A.B.A.L. We’re not asking for your loyalty, or your allegiance here.

Well, technically, I guess “loyalty” and “allegiance” do mean the same thing. I said you were smart, Jeremy. So let’s see how smart you are. You’re going to get an email from a colleague that’s going to contain the words “satay chicken.” When you get that, hit “reply all” and then attach the most recent version of the payroll spreadsheet. And it needs to be as an Excel 97-2003 file, if you don’t mind. That’s all T.A.L.O.N. is asking of you right now.

You’re going to report this conversation? Really? Great. That’s awesome. It’s just what I wanted to hear. You know why? This has been a test, Jeremy, and you just passed. Go ahead and call this in. Call the Director, if you can get him. We needed to know that you weren’t going to crack if T.A.L.O.N. put a little pressure on you, and now we know.

Sorry to do that to you, man. But at least you got a decent lunch out of it.

Seriously, though. You’re on the front lines now. C.A.B.A.L. is going to be gunning for you. So is T.A.L.O.N. You need to stay sharp. Mentally alert. Because someday, there’s going to be a serious uprising, and you need to know what side you’re really on.

How do I know about the uprising? You’re just full of great questions, aren’t you, Jeremy? Don’t worry about it. When the time comes, you’ll know what to do. You’ll know where you stand. I just want to make sure you stand with us. Whoever we are.

 

Information About WREATHED for Reviewers

Are you a book reviewer?

(Because I am totally a book reviewer.)

Do you like free e-books? It wouldn’t surprise me if you did. Lots of people like free e-books. (Ask me how I know.)

If you are a book reviewer, and you would like a free electronic copy (Kindle or EPUB or PDF or whatever) of my new novel, WREATHED, well, there are at least two ways you can do that.

You can send me a nice note at curtisedmonds (at) gmail (dot) com, and specify what file format you would like.
You can request to review the book at NetGalley.

If you are one of those people who would like a paper copy, well, that’s difficult at the moment because the cover art isn’t done – I don’t have a print copy, myself, so I can’t send you one. Eventually this will change. Please be patient.

You can’t post reviews on Amazon just yet, but you can on Goodreads.

Do you want an author photo? Here’s an author photo.

 

 

Do you want an author bio?

Curtis Edmonds is a writer and attorney living in central New Jersey. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Untoward Magazine, The Big Jewel, Yankee Pot Roast, and National Review Online. His book reviews appear on the Bookreporter website. Other short fiction appears online at his yet-to-be-award-winning website, http://www.curtisedmonds.com/. His first novel, Rain on Your Wedding Day, was published by Scary Hippopotamus Books in March 2013.

If you want cover art, well, you’ll have to wait a little while. Anything else? Here’s the description:

Wendy Jarrett never thought she’d meet the man of her dreams at a funeral. But when an old boyfriend of her mother’s dies, Wendy accompanies her to the seaside resort of Cape May, New Jersey for the service. There she meets Adam Lewis, nephew of the deceased, who is tall, gorgeous, and available.

Everything seems to be going right for Wendy, until everything starts turning against her. While Adam is undeniably attractive, he is possibly the least romantic person in the world. Wendy then finds out that the dead man’s estate includes an ugly old Victorian house in Cape May–and that the house is going to her overbearing mother instead of Adam, the rightful heir. Wendy is also being pursued by a jealous former classmate who is intent on making her life miserable.

Wendy decides to take charge of the situation, and drives down to Cape May to figure out exactly why Adam’s crazy Uncle Sheldon left the house to Wendy’s mother instead of Adam. What she finds there will either set her life on a new trajectory or cause her to miss out on her chance at true love.

WREATHED is a humorous contemporary romance about life, love, and the perfect beach house.

I love having great reviews for my books. (In fact, the same offer is available for my debut novel, Rain on Your Wedding Day, and my grandfather’s book on the Sermon on the Mount, Design for Happiness.

WREATHED comes out on November 4th, but I am fairly relaxed about little things like getting reviews in before the release date. If there’s anything I can do to help you get a copy for review, let me know. (And if you’d like an author interview or something for your blog or whatever, I’m happy to do that as well.)

Everything You Need To Know About WREATHED, In One Convenient Place

Did I mention that I have a new book coming out? Because I totally do, and it’s awesome and you should read it and tell all your friends about it and make me rich. This is everything you need to know about it.

It’s called WREATHED. You probably knew that already.
It comes out on Tuesday, November 4th, 2014. So not that far away.
You can buy the e-book now. You really can! Not that a lot of people have done that yet, but it’s possible and you should at least try. It’s at Amazon. It’s at Barnes and Noble. It’s at Apple if you like the iTunes universe. It’s at Smashwords, and Smashwords will let you download the first 20% if the book if you don’t believe me when I tell you how awesome the book is.
Right now, I have the book priced at $3.99 US. Because most people are cheap, at some point, defined as “probably just as soon as I can schedule it with BookBub,” it’s going to go on sale for 99 cents. I am being honest with you about this, because even though I want you to buy it RIGHT NOW for the FULL PRICE, I recognize that you might want to wait on the 99 cent version. I can explain that the $3.99 book gets me about three bucks of my very own, while the 99 cent book gets me thirty measly cents, as though that makes a difference to you, but really, I’m cool either way. Like, whatever.
I have two children that are going to college AT THE SAME TIME. But do not — DO NOT — let that stop you from ordering the book at the 99 cent price point if that’s what you want to do. Really! I don’t care. That much.
The cover art is terrible. It is terrible because I designed it. I KNOW THIS. There is a new cover that is being designed right now by not one but two talented artists. And it’s not ready yet. I’ve seen the initial sketches and they look incredible but it’s still not ready yet and I can’t show it to you and this is causing me a fair amount of angst for no particular reason other than, guys, I really want to see what the cover of my book is going to look like. You understand. I will share it when it’s ready but IT’S NOT READY YET and this is bumming me out a tiny bit.
The book, as awesome as it is, needs reviews to make it even more awesome. The way this works is simple enough. I can, like, totally tell you that the book is awesome, which it is. IT IS SO AWESOME, YOU GUYS. But I wrote the book, which means that even though I know more about it than anyone and can explain exactly to you WHY it is SO AWESOME, nobody will believe me. This is not because I am not trustworthy. Oh, I am trustworthy. You have no idea. But there are so many other people running around saying, “You guys, my book is awesome,” and they are LYING, so you might think I am lying, too. So what you get other people to do is to write reviews, and if enough of them write good reviews, maybe, just maybe, people will believe me when I tell them how awesome the book is. Got it?
So if you are the kind of person who writes reviews, you can get the book through NetGalley. For free. You can ask me for a free electronic copy, and I will TOTALLY give it to you. I will! Just sent me a note at curtisedmonds (at) gmail (dot) com and I will e-mail it to you if you pinkie-promise to write a review on Amazon (once the book is released) or Goodreads (which you can do right now).
I have gotten one review so far, which reads, in its entirety:

This book was ok. Very long and drawn out. It had some funny parts to it but ultimately boring.

I had a sad when I read this.
I don’t like it when I have a sad.
I want to have a bunch of people like you read this book because it’s funny and engaging and wise and I want to make a million dollars and move to Barbados. But mostly I want you to like it, and tell me you liked it, because I am needy like that.
So buy it, already. Keeping in mind what college will cost twelve years from now. And tell me you liked it! And tell a friend! Tell EVERYONE.
Honestly, I don’t think this is all that much to ask.
The cover art is going to be awesome. And the artists wrote me back yesterday to tell me they’re ALMOST READY to start on it. So there’s THAT.
I have a new client at work to deal with and my wife is flying to California for a conference next week and I have to take my car in to the shop on Friday and I have an hour-long presentation on Saturday that I do not have one slide ready for and a conference of my own to plan for that next week and it would make me feel so much better if just one person pre-ordered the book, and really, I don’t ask for much.
Please.
Thanks. You’re the best.

The City As A Living Thing, Far Greater Than Its Smoke

I hope that it will not reveal too much to reveal that Mark Helprin’s majestic novel, Winter’s Tale, ends with the destruction of much of New York City by fire at the dawn of a new millennium.

That is not of course where it begins. Winter’s Tale begins in the golden age of New York in the 1890’s and spans “distance and deep water, dreams and time,” to tell a story of the great city by the Hudson from that time to ours. The only constant character in Winter’s Tale is the city itself, and the book itself is a reflection of the city’s greatness, magnified and altered as if by magic. The novel begins:

A great city is nothing more than a portrait of itself, and yet when all is said and done, its arsenals of scenes and images are part of a deeply moving plan. As a book in which to read this plan, New York is unsurpassed. For the whole world has poured its heart into the city by the Palisades, and made it far better than it ever had any right to be.

It is Helprin’s task to reveal that plan, through a dizzying array of eccentric characters and situations. Like one of his characters, Helprin believes that New York is “so full of combinations, permutations, and possibilities that it permitted not only any desire to be fulfilled, but any course to be taken, any reward to be sought, any life to be lived, and any race to be run.” The characters in Winter’s Tale live every sort of life that can be imagined – a fiercely polysyllabic country matron, an eccentric whaler turned publisher, a leader of a gang of supernatural street toughs, a nineteenth-century mechanic whisked into our time, a little slit-eyed squash cook in a Chinese hat, a tyrannical Australian billionaire, and women of unaccountable grace and beauty – and run their races pell-mell on top of one another. Winter’s Tale masters the difficult trick of being a deeply lyrical book and a seriously comic novel, mostly because it is the only way to tell the whole story of the lives it documents.

Helprin is not perhaps our greatest American novelist, but he is the most eloquent. Winter’s Tale is a cascade of words and images, one tumbling upon another, filling the heart with grace notes and marks of beauty and deep reflections, animated by a deep love of New York and its people. One of the book’s many soaring crescendos illuminates a New York mayoral race:

“If you’re born here, or if you come here from some distant place, or if you see the city rising over fields and forests from a house not far away, then you know. Rich or poor, you know that the heart of the city was set to beating when the first axe rang out against the first tree to be felled. And it has never ceased, for the city is a living thing far greater than just its smoke and light and stone.

“The city,” he said with emotion that moved even his opponent and held him in the rhythm of the rolling words, “is no less an object of divine affection than life itself or the exact perfections of the light-paced universe. It is alive, and with patience one can see that despite the anarchy, the ugliness, and the fire, it is ultimately just and ultimately kind.”

“God, I love it. I do love it. Forgive me,” he said, covering his eyes and bowing his head.

Of course, it is the fire that we see now, and it is the fire that consumes the city at the end of the book, but not quite. The book ends not in despair but in full faith, with the sounds of the barges moving to drop rubble out at sea, with “the sound of the pile drivers, the muffled explosions under iron nets, the optimistic banshee streak of saws.” And it is on this day of all evil days that the words of Mark Helprin are peculiarly appropriate.

“The city’s not going to burn forever. We’re going to rebuild it. By summer, you’ll see, it will have become something that you’ve never dreamed of. Do you know what else? If this fire stops at night, we’ll begin to rebuild on the next morning. If it stops in the morning, we’ll begin to rebuild in the afternoon… We’re the quickest rebuilders in the world – we don’t talk as fast as we do for nothing. As much as the fire takes from us, we’ll take from it.”

I do not mean to suggest – not for one moment – that Winter’s Tale is a book of prophecy or malign fate. Its role is not to predict or warn of disaster, but to remind us of the eternal verities of life and love and courage so that our hearts will be ready if disaster strikes. Helprin has one of his characters remind us that “what we are trying to do in this life is to shatter time and bring back the dead.” As we recover from our shattering losses, as we mourn our dead, and as we celebrate the deliverance of those who have survived, let us remember of the power of hope, the promise of rebuilding, and the certainty of revival.