Books Aren't Just For Reading! (Utter Nonsense)

"Books aren't just for reading!"  That's the line I read in a magazine while waiting in a doctor's office some years ago.  It was an article about tips on decorating your home or apartment, with incredibly helpful tips on how to arrange books on a shelf so they look pleasing to the eye and how to use them to create a step pattern so that you can put candles on them.  (It was quick to note that you should not actually light the candles as they are on top of books.  Apparently the author thought that candles, like books, were mere props to show off how intellectually stunted the homeowner or renter happened to be.)

Ridiculous.

Books are for reading.  They aren't decorative props.  They aren't there to prop a window open or level out a table.  Using them as such says a lot about the user, and none of it is good.

I'm a firm believer in John Waters' advice.  If you go to someone's house and they don't have books, don't fuck them.  I can't think of a better bit of advice to give someone.  If a person doesn't have at least a few books on their shelves, how interesting do you think they are going to be?  Perhaps they don't think books are "cool" or "stimulating" enough.  There are literally thousands of titles (some of which I cover on this blog) that say differently.  Books on serial killers, fallen athletes, sex slaves, UFO abductions, criminals of the worst sort, Nazis, cannibalism, revenge, bomb making, body modification, conspiracy theories ... the list goes on.  If you can't find something that interests you, how do you expect someone to find you interesting?

So, if you go to someone's house and they don't have any books, keep away from their naughty bits.  If they do have books, but they're being used as a stand for a decorative vase, burn their freakin' house down.

Smut Unbound: The Elizabeth de la Place Interview

Elizabeth de la Place is the author of short stories with wholesome titles like The Billionaire’s Babysitter: Deflowering the Sitter, Sexy Hardcore Lesbians, Lesbian Strap-On Party, Ambulance Slut, Cum on and Haze Me, and Tie Me Up Teacher. (Click on the pictures for any you want to order.)  Obviously these aren’t for kids or their conservative parents, and they may even be a little more than what the Fifty Shades of Grey crowd can endure, but I was intrigued by them … and more importantly the woman behind them.   De la Place and I “met” on Smashwords, and after I reviewed The Billionaire’s Babysitter: Deflowering the Sitter, I decided to interview her.  After all, it’s not too many “smut” writers who would be willing to be so open about what they do.

De la Place is a college student studying chemistry at what she describes as a “liberal arts college.”  “I write for my school’s feminist newspaper,” she says, “and I hope to get my PhD after I graduate.  I think a lot of erotica authors lie on their author bios, but I actually was a cheerleader throughout middle and high school – my experiences and the stories the other girls would tell definitely serve well as inspiration for me now.”  In fact, the camp in Zombies at Cheer Camp was based on a cheerleading camp de la Place attended.

So how did this former cheerleader start down the much maligned path of writing erotica that borders on pure porn?  The answer is pretty simple: She read a forum post about it and the rest was history. De la Place explains, “I figured that it would be fun to try out – at the very least, if it didn’t work out, it would make for a great story.”  Since her personal sexual fantasies were “pretty involved,” it made getting those fantasies onto the page a bit easier, but as any writer knows, writing is only part of the battle.  The other part involves your readers and what they think of your work.  Erotica has its share of rabid fans and detractors.  Bad porn still can fulfill a masturbation need in the lonely, but bad erotica causes the author to be treated like a leper at the prom.  Everyone wants to look, but nobody wants to dance.  De la Place has been lucky.

“The reaction has been really good!” she states.  “I’ve received fan mail, which is exciting, and my friends, many of whom help me edit and provide me with ideas, have been really supportive and encouraging.  Even if they do make fun of me a little bit.”  De la Place’s subject matter (barely legal erotica, for instance) hasn’t caused an outrage, either, which is surprising when you consider American culture.  “I like to think that, as a younger woman and as a queer woman, I manage to handle those subjects well.   A lot of barely legal erotica strikes me as a little skeevy because I don’t like the idea of a docile, infantile woman – even when the female characters in my stories are being submissive, I want to make sure that they are willing and clever participants.  It’s easy for me to put myself in their shoes and to insert a bit of my own personality into them.  There is one subject she does shy away from, however.

“I would never do a rape/dubcon scene for pure titillation,” she explains.  “I do a lot of work with survivors of rape and abuse, and I think that using the rape of people, especially the ‘Oh, s/he enjoyed it in the end, so it’s okay,’ does a lot of bad things with regard to normalizing rape culture.  Only one of my stories features some mild dubious consent, and I struggled a lot with the decision to include it.”

De la Place’s works aren’t novels.  They are short stories ranging anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 words, which some would say is just right for a piece of erotic fiction as it gets right to the “good stuff.”  The price for these pieces is $2.99 (more for the bundled works).  “That’s less than a price of a cup of fancy coffee,” de la Place explains, “and a sexy story is the sort of thing you can read again and again.”

Independent authors of ebooks and stories are left to price their works themselves.  It was something I struggled with when it came to pricing my books and short stories, and it is something Place thought hard about, as well.  “My prices mostly come from what I think they’re worth without underselling myself, and from my observations on how the really successful erotica authors price their work.”   One key indicator of how appropriately a piece is priced is by how well it is selling.  For relatively unknown authors, the price can mean the difference between fame and famine, as they don’t have their name to trade in on.  De la Place’s sales vary.

“I have a short story,” Place says, “Ambulance Slut,  that I joke about because I don’t think it sold a single copy in the United States for months after publishing, but it sold bizarrely well on Amazon UK for a while.  As time goes on, my sales have been increasing a lot – I make more in a week than I did in my first few months.”  I had a similar situation happen with Melinda.  It sold in America, but someone apparently started a discussion about it on some British forum, and suddenly I was seeing a spike in sales overseas and hearing from Brits who had a fetish involving starving women.  It was odd to say the least, and it did get me thinking about writing some truly fetishistic porn in order to supplement the bank account.  While I haven’t thoroughly ditched the idea yet, looking at the amount of work de la Place produces has given me pause. 

In June she published “about a dozen titles.”  The next month she did about six.  “I hope to get five more titles online before I go back to university at the end of August,” she states.  “My production will definitely slow down when I’m in school, since classes are my absolute first priority, but I hope that I’ll still be able to publish a few times a month.”

With the amount of short stories de la Place puts out, I felt the need to ask her if she thought she had a novel in her.  As any writer can tell you, there is a world of difference between writing a short story and writing a novel.  “I don’t know,” she answers.  “I’d like to think so.  I’d definitely be interested in writing young adult novels, but I’m not sure if I’m cut out for a longer length.”  For the immediate future, however, de la Place is sticking with what she knows.

“Up next are probably more lesbian works, maybe a dip into fantasy and sci-fi, and hopefully the conclusion to the Cum on and Haze Me trilogy.  I have a big document full of ideas, but when it comes down to it, most of my stories are based on what I feel like writing that day.  Sometimes I wake up and really want to write about horny schoolgirls, and other days I feel like writing about some gay knights having sex with a dragon.  It’s always a surprise, but it also helps to keep me from getting burned out.”

With ideas like that, who needs a novel?  It seems like the short story is working just fine for this author.  And while I’m not quite sure I’d enjoy reading about gay knights having sex with a dragon, I’m fairly positive there are some folks in Europe who will make that a best seller.

Mandated FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me a commission.

  

A Simple Study in Economics

Kersten Kelly’s Ec•o•nom•ics: A Simple Twist on Normalcy takes a lot of inspiration from Freakonomics.  Anyone expecting a rehash of that book is going to be sorely disappointed, however.  Kelly’s work stands on its own, and its goal is to make a vast, complex subject a little more understandable.  Does it work?  Yes, but with a price.

Kelly writes in a very conversational style, which helps when dealing with economics and the theories that drive the marketplace and consumers.  She examines the complexities behind things like what dictates lipstick purchases in a struggling economy and the how people’s decisions are swayed on a show like Deal or No Deal and then ties them into simple economics.  If you have a passing interest in this subject, this book will whet your appetite for more.  If you are a seasoned pro, however, you may find it a little too basic, but that is the book’s allure.  While Freakonomics, a book I enjoyed, took strange situations (such as how legalized abortion affected the crime rate) and applied science to it, Kelly takes ordinary situations that we take for granted and examines why they work the way they do.  Fast food, car purchases, the Cold War, extreme couponing, dating sites – she hits them all, and while this is a good starting point, many of these issues are far more complicated than this book would have you believe.  That doesn’t matter, though, because sometimes a simple understanding is more than enough to give you solid ground to stand on.

Freakonomics took relatively simple ideas and problems and showed how complex they were.  Ec•o•nom•ics takes complex issues and shows how simple they can be.  The two books, while vastly different, complement each other quite well.  There is still much for Kelly to uncover, however, and it makes me wonder if she is working on a new volume.

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I received this book to review.  Clicking on a link may earn me a commission.

50 Shades of Shrugs

If you pay any attention to the news, mommy porn is big.  Now, I thought it was something different than what Brian Williams was yattering about, but whatever.  Fifty Shades of Grey is apparently all the rage for women reconnecting with their vibrators.  Hell, Target sells it.  It must be racy.

Obviously, I like the idea that a book is getting press.  It reminds others that there are people out there still reading.  I don't care if they are books about boy wizards or women being tied up.  These days, getting people to crack a book's spine is often a massive undertaking.  So, if a book about a young college girl in relationship with an older man who likes to get a little kinky (and I'm sure it's very little) does the trick, so be it.  I suppose it could be worse.

I know of a woman who was reading it as an eBook.  She described it to me as -- wait for it -- steamy.  I asked her what made it so.  She had a hard time explaining it and told me I would just "have to read it for myself."  I passed, but not because I think I am above it or something.  No, I passed because I know that if the masses are embracing it as some kind of erotic thrill ride it is most likely neither of those things.  You can't trust the masses with voting, television shows, books or movies.  Nine times out of ten, the masses will be wrong, and that one time they are right it will be a fluke they cannot explain.  I don't like those odds.

Fifty Shades of Grey, part one of a clitoris-engorging trilogy, may be an erotic masterpiece.  It could put Sex Lounge to shame.  But, and I ask this in all seriousness, how bad can it be if Walmart and Target carry it?  Sure, some libraries in the South have apparently banned it last I heard, but that's the South.  They'd ban all books if they could figure out a way to do it without appearing totally backwards.  Target and Walmart are not going to carry anything that pushes the envelope too far, or causes too much teen masturbation. It's just not going to happen.  Read the reviews on Walmart's webpage that are written by actual readers!  The term love making is actually in quotes once, and more than one person keeps stating it is for "mature readers," whatever that may mean. (One person did write "matured" reader.) Emotionally mature?  Physically mature?  Readers who moved on from the boy wizard and company?  Is it "adults only," as one reviewer says? Another would-be critic said it made her "sweat."  Another calls it "educational," and one of my favorites says there's more to the story than just "adult activity," which I take to mean things like paying taxes and getting checked for lumps. 

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, and sometimes by its readers.  If I take these reviews to heart, I can be sure to experience a mature read that is educational when it comes to adult activities.  About the most I can say in its defense is that the author, E.L. James, has sure hit the right crowd.  They definitely need an education.

Pure Filth Arrives Shrinkwrapped

There it was. Fresh from the printer. Shrinkwrapped. Cover price? An ironic $69. Peter Sotos. Jamie Gillis. I had wanted it since I saw it on Feral House's website. Pure Filth. Knowing of the two minds behind it, I could only imagine how it would read. As I peeled off the plastic, I found out. I wasn't ready to read it yet. I'm still reading Eyes to the South, an incredibly interesting examination of Algeria. But I had to look through. Examine the photos. Read a few passages.

It was as I expected it to be.

Sotos is a disturbing writer. Here he is transcribing a series of films. If you are familiar with the two men, you have an idea of what you'll read. I imagine that when I finally sit down with it I will be beyond captivated. Of course, this isn't something I want to take in casually. It will be an experience ... one unlike most reads.

While others devour Fifty Shades of Gray and feel somewhat transgressive or racy, I will picture them reading this and cringing in horror. That mom porn is fantasy. This is reality. And what a terrible reality it appears to be. This isn't the kind of stuff that those S&M/B&D weekenders call "play." This is deadly serious stuff. Mouths pried wide open for some humiliating wonders. It's the kind of thing that if you read it and it gives you an erection, you may want to seek out a psychologist. Otherwise, you may just end up trolling the streets looking for hookers who seem like they won't know the kind of trouble they're about to find up until about five minutes after they are knee deep in it. Mommy porn, indeed.

The last Sotos book I read gave me nightmares. It bothered me so much I stopped working on my sex and violence manuscript. I expect this one to effect me a bit differently. This isn't from Sotos' mind. He's a witness to it. He is merely the notebook man. That said, my guess is that while he watched these films, there was a definite erection going on ... and he totally understood why. Another guess? There was a bit of a smile, too, but not the kind you are thinking ...

 Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me a commission.

National Bracket Day Proves a Book's Thesis

CNN Headline News has done a few stories today on National Bracket Day. I'm not sure if this is a "real" day like Valentine's Day, or if it is something the channel made up, but it serves to prove the thesis of Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture. As a culture, we Americans are getting dumber by the minute. The fact that CNN is covering NCAA brackets as a news item proves it. (Yes, I know this is the same channel that, on the same day, covered a shark feeding frenzy as news and seemed to care a lot about Whitney Houston's daughter talking to Oprah. These things served as bookends on a piece on an American soldier going berserk in an incident sure to cripple international relations, yet handled with the same level of severity as, say, high gas prices. The book was first written in 1997, and I would posit that American culture has actually gotten worse. It isn't that it has become "dumber." It's that culture doesn't seem to even exist anymore. Everything is throw-away. The attention span of the American public is about ten months, which ensures that nothing stays around long enough to have an influence on the culture, and when, by law of averages, it does, it isn't anything good (e.g., American Idol Also reported on CNN Headline News: Jeff Foxworthy is supporting Mitt Romney. At what point would any news network take Foxworthy's support of a character as anything other than something to be mocked? Apparently never. I imagine when this is a news item, National Bracket Day coverage (complete with cheerleaders -- I kid not) is not far off. Dumbing Down has some troubling aspects to it, and I don't agree with every essay in it, but as a whole it is a powerful and damning work that should be read by those whose opinion on American culture is less than ideal. The rest of you can fill out your brackets and take much comfort in the fact that you aren't alone. Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I did not receive this book to review. It was a gift. If you click on a link you may cause me to earn a commission.

Your Death Song Stays On My Mind

If you read a lot of horror fiction from the '80s you know two things: Stephen King would promote anything, and you had to wade through a lot of crap to get to something satisfying.  Douglas Borton's Death Song was promoted by King, and it is part of the crap I waded through.

I don't remember how I came across this book, but based on its condition, I believe I bought it used.  It sat on my shelf a long time before I got to reading it just recently.  I finished it, too, but it was a chore.

The plot gives a nod to H.P. Lovecraft and takes his ideas (dark gods out there just waiting to destroy our world) and then gives a female country singer the power to conjure and destroy them.  Along the way she encounters cultists who are out to kill her.  The preferred killing method?  Song.  Unholy songs that cause you to do things like grow creatures in your stomach or kill yourself.  It's a good idea, actually, and the novel moves at a very fast pace, but it falls apart in one key place: its main character, Billie Lee Kidd, the country singer I mentioned.

Billie Lee Kidd never comes across as believable ... especially when it comes to her dialogue.  She cracks wise almost constantly, even when faced with death.  That's a symptom of a writer taking in too many bad movies and trying to make a "cool" character.  She's not very likable, either, which is not something I can really complain about since I write characters that aren't very likable, too.  At least I make my characters interesting, however.  With Kidd, the little bit we know doesn't make us want to know more.  We know she got bit by a snake as a kid.  We know she's a country singer.  We know she sleeps around a lot.  None of this really helps us know her.  Therefore, when she is in danger (most of the novel), we don't really care what happens to her.  We also never get a real sense of how pressing this coming of the dark gods truly is.  We know the world will be destroyed, but it is handled with the same weight as, say, 30 people being killed.

I'm a firm believer that for horror to work well, you have to have characters readers can care about.  They may not always like them, but they have to care for them in one way or another.  If they don't, the horror is lost.  That is the case here.  It is a shame, too, as it had much promise.  The "prologue," so to speak, reads like something from Robert E. Howard, and that's good, but it's fairly downhill from there, with just a few moments of greatness to keep you strung along.

I'll be putting this book on eBay at some point.  It won't pain me to part with it, and it means I'll probably be avoiding any other books with Borton's name on the cover.  At least King isn't pushing every horror book out these days.  I just wish he would've been more selective back in the '80s.

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I did not receive this book to review.

The Pricing Debate on eBooks Continues

My thoughts on the whole subject sparked some more debate on the topic on various boards.  One of the more interesting things I noticed was that some readers are liable to spend more on books written by independent authors over those published by the major publishing houses.  They seem to understand that the indie authors struggle more, and therefore are "voting with their dollars."  They also are willing to pay a little more for those books.  Again, understanding the finances involved in being an independent author.  Granted, there are those who think the eBooks should all be .99 cents or free, and they are quick to point out that there are authors who make quite a bit of money selling for .99 cents.  That is true, but it is not the norm.

The eBook marketed is flooded.  It is hard for authors who aren't well known to get their work out there to be seen.  Self-promotion only goes so far, but word of mouth can work wonders.  That word of mouth can also drive sales despite whatever the price.

Amazon and Smashwords have it right.  Letting authors set the price sets up a situation much like eBay.  It is what the market can handle, and it is fluid.  If an author has found she has priced to high, she can lower it, and vice versa.  A good book is going to sell regardless ... if people know about it.  That, over pricing, is the key to selling books.

The market is still new enough that pricing will work itself out and a happy medium will be found.  While that happens, authors have to find a way to make their work stick out over all the other eBooks out there.  The playing field has been somewhat leveled, with authors now being able to get their books out there without the aid of a publisher.  Getting the rest of the world to see your book is the real challenge, and it looks to be that way for quite some time.

Pricing eBooks

The topic of the pricing of eBooks came up on a board I regularly post on.  Chiefly, why are eBooks so expensive?  There is, of course, a lot of different factors that go into this sort of thing.  Who has the rights?  Who must get paid?  So on and so forth.  It's the same thing that dictates every purchase one makes (unless, of course, you're one of those filth who believes you should just be able to exploit artists because they are there). 

The pricing of my short stories and Nothing Men was something I put a lot of thought into.  I put a lot of research into the novel (most writers do).  I had delved into everything from old gas pumps to Native American tanning techniques and was privy to some of the grimest footage anyone can imagine.  (A refrigerator filled with body parts and a several bins filled with the pieces of one man are two that stick out.  For the icebox, I'm not talking like a few feet in Dahmer's apartment.  I'm talking "packed" with discoloring limbs.)  The amount of research I put into it, though, wasn't going to play into my pricing.  This was something I did to make the story the best I could. No.  One question came up time and time again as I pondered a price.

What is fair?

What would I pay for the work?  Taking myself out of the equation and looking at it honestly, what would I pay?  I'm not an unknown in the world of publishing, but nor am I Clive Barker.  With that in mind, what can I reasonably ask for without sounding like a total dick.  And that's how I arrived at my pricing.  (Ironically, I sold more copies of Nothing Men, which you can purchase to the right of the screen, when it was full price.  I had briefly put it on sale as a special to some board readers and sold not a single copy.  Pricing most likely has less to do with a buying decision than one thinks.)

I think my prices are reasonable.  The works don't sell as well as I'd like, but I think that has little to do with pricing and everything to do with word of mouth.  There are a lot of eBooks out there.  Making mine stand out in a crowd has been difficult to say the least.  I have it available for ever eReader now, but the competition is fierce.  Standing out amongst the Young Adult vampire tales is a tough thing, especially when I write about subject matter that is a bit more hostile than what the average reader is used to taking in.  There is a market for it, though, including a few I didn't know existed (Brits who have a fetish for starving women, for example). 

I do think some eBooks are vastly overpriced.  I also think some are underpriced, as well (a complaint you don't often hear).  If authors had a little more confidence in their work, that could change, but the key point must remain relevant:  What is fair?  If you stick to that, you can't go wrong.

Personality Goes a Long Way

Boy howdy does it!  The proof?  Florence Littauer's seminal Personality Plus (found on at my job for free, but a price sticker on its cover indicates someone got it for a mere .30 cents).  I tried to find an image of the edition I have online (with its lovely photo of the author), but it wasn't happening.  I then tried to take a picture of it with my phone.  If you don't see the photo here it is because my phone's personality is out of whack.

This book promises you "how to understand others by understanding yourself."  And to make sure you are getting your .30 cents worth, it includes a "Personality Profile Test!"  Now I know what you are thinking.  Why on Earth would anyone need this book?  I was thinking the same thing until I read the back cover.  Then it became perfectly and painfully clear.  Everyone needs this book!

"Are you the life of the party ... or do you refuse to be 'caught dead' at one?  Do you get along with everyone ... or wish that everyone would just move along?  Do you push people into doing what you want ... or do you need a big push to get moving?  If the answer to any of these is yes, then Personality Plus has the help you need to understand yourself and others better."  Well shit the bed!  Littauer has hit the nail on its pretty little introverted head.  This "lighthearted examination" is going to show readers how to get along with others, a skill not learned in school or in the home.  Thank goodness such a heady and decidedly dicey topic can be covered in a "lighthearted" way in a mere 188 pages.

Or should I thank God?

Littauer's book makes a lot of promises, but none is as ominous as this one.  "Florence Littauer shares amusing anecdotes and wise insights that will give you an appreciation of God-ordained personality differences."  I wonder which personality difference God ordained unto child-killer and cannibal Albert Fish.  Perhaps it is covered in the chapter "Let's Have Fun With the Sanguine."  Perhaps not.

Sprinkled throughout the chapters, personality deprived readers will encounter stories that seem to be plainly made up.  "One day as I was driving down the freeway with my Melancholy [sic] son, Fred, I noticed all the bankings were covered with bright, white daisies.  'Look at those beautiful flowers!' I exclaimed.  As Fred turned, his eyes fell on a large weed and he sighed, 'Yes, but look at that weed.'"
I don't think that really happened.

The end of the book, which assures us that we are all unique blends who don't like to be fenced in, has quotes from the Bible and an interesting chapter on Eugenics.  I'm kidding on that part.  I wanted to see if everyone was still reading.  Though, honestly, I could easily see this "lighthearted" romp through the many facets of personality (broke into just a few groups here) easily be turned into something more sinister.  I have found, through scientific study, that 188 pages is precisely what you need to cause a person to turn against another ethnic or religious group.

The bottom line is: If you have turned to this book in order to understand yourself or others better, you're already in a lot of trouble and this book won't help.  It's not nearly enough pages to get you out of the swamp you are in.  I'm sure church groups loved it and chuckled at the stories, true or not.  Reality is far harsher mistress, however.  And I don't think there's a Bible quote for that.

Assimilation In Four, Three, Two ...

Later this month AK Press is publishing Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform.  I'm getting it as part of the Friends of AK Press program, and it is a subject I've been interested in for a while.  Why would a group so generally despised and misunderstood want to conform to society's norms so badly?  It obviously goes well beyond equal rights (you can still have equal rights without having to adopt the values of society as a whole), and I want to know what drives that.  Is it that most people, no matter what their particular bent, have a desire to conform?  Is it a bit of self-loathing that manifests itself after years of being told you are inferior and an aberration?  Is it that 95% of the population is just idiotic?  It's a fascinating subject, and I'm glad AK Press is tackling it, though I'm sure it will cause a bit of a controversy.

I don't know what directions the book will take (and it is an anthology, so expect the usual variants in quality), but my guess is that the question of why many homosexuals feel the only safe route to take is one where you mimic heterosexual culture in every way you can -- marriage, children, voting Republican -- may be delved into and taken to task, and that is something that needs to be done.  In the span of history, the modern gay rights movement is fairly young, and it has come a long way, but there are factions within it that seem to have forgotten what was being fought for, and I think this may be the book that helps set the record straight -- no pun intended. 

Like many AK Press books, I probably won't be reading it as soon as it arrive in my PO box, but when I do, you can expect a review here.  In the meantime, I advise anyone with at least a passing interest in the subject to check it out ... as I predict this tome is going to get a lot of press in all the right places.

The Culture of Idiocy

From the back of The Culture of Terrorism: "The exposure of the lies and corruption surrounding Iran/contra dealings in early 1988 finally revealed to the world the means by which US administrations have used the state apparatus to organise a clandestine network of global terrorism."  After picking up the book, which I was reading but had set aside, the person read the back and asked, "So you want to learn how to be a terrorist?"

Seriously.  That was the question?

How can one read the book description and think that Noam Chomsky's work is a handbook on how to be a terrorist?  Where does that even come from?  What words were in that paragraph that would lead anyone to believe such a thing?

My response was, "I already know how to do that.  I want to see how the pros do it."  What else could I say?  Anything I said would be unheard anyway.  If someone isn't going to pay attention to a description they just read, they sure as hell aren't going to listen to whatever answer I have to offer, so why bother trying to enter into a debate or even take the question seriously?  Exercises in futility are not sins, but they should be.  Frankly, even if the person hadn't read the book's description, the title in no way says that it is a how-to manual.

Lesson learned on that cloudy day?  If you read a book like this in public, be prepared for people to think you are a terrorist in training.  Don't try to explain any differently, either, as it is highly unlikely they will accept your answer.  How did this guy respond to me?  He just nodded his head and went on with his business.  Seems about right.
Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I paid for this book, and if you click the link to order it, I may earn a commission.

Slave to the Needle -- Requiem for a Dream

Since I was a big fan of the film version of the ultra-depressing Requiem for a Dream, one could only imagine my delight when I found a paperback copy of Playboy Press' printing of the book.  I felt like a junkie scoring a bundle ... but I refrained from reading it.  Why?  Time.  Mood.  A number of other factors.  That said, I'm reading it now (almost done with it actually), and I have to say that as satisfying as it is (even more than the movie), it is also a bit frustrating.

As much as I support artistic decisions, I like the traditional structure of a novel.  Paragraphs.  Quotation marks.  Apostrophes.  Hubert Selby, Jr.'s novel pretty much leaves those things at the wayside.  Paragraphs  are rare (some paragraphs go on for pages).  I don't think I've come across a single quotation mark (and I only have a few pages to go).  And apostrophes?  More often than not, Selby/ll do something like that.  It is all a bit maddening, but I imagine that fits in with the story.  The editor in me hates it.  The English teacher inside me died after ten pages, and the reader in me is thankful to go along for the ride, but would really like a visual break now and then.

There are people who have seen me reading this and have said, "I will never watch that movie again."  I ask if they've read the book and they really have no desire to do so.  I can't imagine why they ever watched the movie in the first place, but I leave them be.  If you don't know the depths of depression and depravity, you also can't know the heights of joy.  Their loss.

Selby tapped into magic with this book.  It's a dark, overwhelming magic, but it is magic nonetheless.  The film realized much of it, but as usual, the source material is miles above what made it to screen.  And if you were brave enough to sit through the film, the novel will actually be a little easier to tolerate ... at which point you'll get more from the story.  It's not entertaining, but it's not meant to be.  It's a descent, and that's something people need to do a little more.


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I paid for my copy of the book.  If you click on the link, I may earn a commission.

Rampant Sex and Drug Use -- Why the Movies Aren't Like They Used to Be

If there's one thing I love more than exploitation movies, it's books about them.  Sleazoid Express is one of those that is about those movies as much as it is about the experience of watching them in New York City's Times Square ... before it got all gussied up for the dance.  Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford have penned a love letter to a bygone era, a time where going to the movies meant taking your life in your hands.  Rampant sex with other movie goers and prostitutes, robberies, drug use, criminals fleeing the police.  I wish the movies were that fun now.  (And let's face it, if you are dumb enough to see something like Transformers you need to get robbed again.)

Fans of exploitation films may be a bit upset over the actual film coverage.  Divided into sections, the book only gives an overview of some the examples from each genre.  One or two movies in each is delved into in detail, and there is much hate doled out for some of the shining examples of exploitation (such as Cannibal Holocaust).  What is left, however, are some fascinating tales of the theatres and the people who made them and starred in them.  Other books may have covered the latter, but few have actually covered the theatres, delving into urine-soaked bathrooms where people can be found shooting up; or even going into the mazes that sometimes connected one theatre to another, the hallways of which became predator playgrounds with woe being visited upon anyone stupid enough to make their way through them too slowly.

If anything, Sleazoid Express is a historical look at a place and era that cannot be replicated in any kind of meaningful scale.  Some may try, but the Times Square of that time period was shaped by the people around it, who were shaped by the events they lived through.  The films were just as dangerous, products of addled minds and the belief that doors to cinema were wide open.  It was a time where anything could happen in film ... and did.  We have lost that.  Brilliantly psychotic filmmakers are now relegated to DVDs, which can be viewed in the safety of one's home.  Hardcore porn no longer plays en masse in the "bad" section of town.  Double features are as rare as original ideas.  Reading the book doesn't fill me with nostalgia.  It fills me with sadness.  That environment will never exist again, and I can't help but think that not only is current cinema all the worst for it, but so is the future of film. 


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I paid for this book, and if you click on the link to order it I may earn a commission.

Unleashing the Beast

Nothing Men is selling.  Not gangbusters.  Not quit my job and buy a mansion.  But selling enough to get me a royalty check that I can be proud of cashing.  It's taken promotion and some word of mouth, and now that Halloween is over it will take more of that, but I'm fine doing it.  I've heard from a few readers either on my blogs or through an e-mail.  One friend who bought it, however, had a complaint:  It is too violent.

I'm used to complaints about this book.  The first publisher whom I sent it to dismissed it because the ending was "too depressing."  My test reading group was generally positive, but there were a few who couldn't finish it because they either "knew bad things were going to happen," or it was "just too tense."  Regardless, I didn't change anything based on those comments.  It's a horror story of a certain nature.  Certain things had to happen.  If I thought the complaints had been valid, I would've made changes.  However, when one of the test reading group said it read like "one of those movies [exploitation] from the '70s or '80s where you knew everyone was going to die," I knew I had hit the nail on the head.  Home run.  Perfect game.  That was exactly what I was going for.  This is my exploitation novel.

My friend, the one who thought it was too violent, said, "I know you can think of some pretty crazy things, but the stuff in your book bothered me.  I don't think I'll be reading anything other horror stories you write.  I don't like when you unleash your beast."  Out of morbid curiosity I asked what he thought of the novel's ending.

"I didn't make it that far.  I stopped at that part with the boy in the woods.  I was done."

Incidentally, that is where two members of the test reading group stopped as well.  It was something about that scene that really got under their skin.  It's a scene I really enjoyed writing.  It is nasty.  There are threats of sexual violence.  Two nasty men.  One teen boy.  A ball gag.  A meat hook on a chain.  A survival knife.  Urine.  The combination of things and the situation (and dialog, I learned) upset at least three readers I knew about, and I wondered about that.  Two of them I knew for a fact read horror. Why was mine different?  I asked my friend, who was hesitant to talk about it.

He told me, with much hesitation, that the scene bothered him so much because it felt gleefully sadistic (wait until he finds out about the manuscript I'm working on now), and the fact that he knew me made it even worse.  "I can't believe I know someone who would come up with something like that."

That may be what bothered the others, too.  People who know me know I come up with some pretty horrific things, but I guess putting those things into a story makes them more "real."  Oddly enough, that scene in the novel is where I think the tone changed, where it hit its stride and where I first really "unleashed the beast."  It is gleefully sadistic, and it should be.  Those people who stopped reading there didn't upset me.  In fact, it made me feel like I was doing my job right.  I wanted them to finish the story. What writer doesn't?  But the fact that I wrote something disturbing that it caused them to stop reading and made them promise a cold, hard refusal to ever finish it is something I take pride in.  I've never stopped reading a horror story because it was too scary, but I've loved those moments where I've felt hesitant to go on, where I've felt nothing but dread.  And now I've created that moment for others.

I wish those readers who stopped reading would've finished the story.  Again, what writer doesn't want that?  But I know they were right to stop.  If that scene bothered them, the rest of the story would thoroughly ruin their day.  It doesn't get nicer.  The sadism the friend pointed out doesn't lessen.  The violence only gets worse.  They were right in putting it aside to never revisit again.  But damn if it wouldn't have been nice to send them home in tears ...

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer:  Yes, clicking on a link will possibly cause me to earn a commission and royalties.  So what?

End Times -- The Death of the Fourth Estate

I woke up this morning at exactly 4:12.  My stomach was threatening to expel its contents in the most unpleasant of ways.  It was the same queasy, nauseous feeling I got when I read End Times -- The Death of the Fourth Estate.

The team-up of AK Press and CounterPunch always produces great results.  This 2007 book, which I got as part of the Friends of AK Press plan, is no different.  Within its several hundred pages it lays out an argument that the Fourth Estate (the news media) is dying and it is doing so primarily at its own hands.  Everything from the Israel lobby (and its lack of coverage) to the media's role in war to journalists being killed by the U.S. military and the media's blind eye to this is covered in fascinating detail.  For a media junkie such as myself, this is gold.

Yes, people like Rupert Murdoch are hung out to try, but lest you think this is merely some liberal whining about the conservative media, The New York Times and Hunter S. Thompson are also raked through the coals.  CNN is damned in the particularly disturbing essay titled "The Military & CNN."  Once you read this book, your view of media will either be given credence or tainted forever.

I would write more.  Believe me, I could.  But, like the media covered in this book, I feel like I'm dying.

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer:  I paid for this book through the Friends of AK Press program.  If the FTC doesn't know what the hell that is, its employees can look it up.  I'm sure they are familiar with AK Press at least.  As for the links, click on them and I may earn a commission.

What Makes Men Tick -- A Highly Dated and Insulting Guide to Understanding Your Man

Women, let's face it: You don't really understand your man, do you?  You think you do.  You think he likes the hamburgers you make.  You think he likes your cute little nickname for his penis ("Hello, Mr. Jones!").  You think he likes that purple thing you wear to bed. 

You are dead wrong!

As luck would have it, Aldus Books London put out this nifty hardcover guide in 1972 to help ladies around the world figure out their men.  Did it work?  Just look at the cover.  It had to work.

Author Portia Beers (her last name is a siren call to the frat boy in your man), tells ladies that men can bet "tough-minded and tender-hearted, foolish and wise, stubborn and impulsive, thoughtless and considerate -- they can be maddening and they can be marvelous."  Men, this looks good for us.  Apparently we can be everything. 

Anything you can do, I can do better ...

After this puzzling introduction there is a "picture essay" on "The Male Animal."  This is great.  A few of the examples of the male animal you will find: the caveman, a man beating a woman, Casanova, Mick Jagger, football players, homosexuals, and Steve McQueen.  Sprinkled throughout the book are more fascinating '70s-era photos of nude men holding naked babies, men in dapper suits with a line of subservient women, men in pink aprons holding cakes.  One thing you get from looking at all these manly photographs is how bad haircuts were in the '70s.  Seriously.  I grew up in the '70s.  It sucked.  The hairstyles should not have been preserved in a book that women from now until the end of time will be referring to in order to understand their sperm maker.

The advice the book shills out is, as to be expected, scientific and rational.  In a section about why men marry, Beers has this to say, "While a single woman over 40 may be given up as a hopeless case, a single man of the same age is still considered prime marriage material, not only by his family and married friends, but also by single women as young as half his age."  It's statements like this that make you wonder for which sex the book was written.  "[W]omen usually feel safe, more secure, with a man who has everything under control."  And ladies, if you want to get married, just wait.  Eventually, they have to come to you.  Why?  You're ugly.  "[T]he competition for attractive girls is fierce among single men, and keeping pace with every other unmarried Tom, Dick and Harry can make it difficult to keep up with an increasing work load, especially as a man gets older."  So once he tires of chasing attractive women, he can settle for you.  Oh, Ms. Beers (I'm assuming she was single then based on the advice in this book), thank you for giving those forty-one-year-old spinsters hope.

When your old and do get that tired man, Beers has some great advice as to what makes a wife.  "Ideally, an exciting sexual partner, an expert cook and housekeeper, a charming hostess, a patient mother, and above all, a loving and devoted companion."  Need I say more?  Yes.

If only she wouldn't ask for sexual bliss...

Women are also painted as if they are sitting on the bench at the Salem Witch Trials.  "Although wives often direct all kinds of accusations at their husbands about sexual orgies and whatnot at their conventions, these meetings are less marked by depravity then they are by the escapades and tomfoolery of grown men released for a while from the pressures of supporting a family, paying the mortgage, and meeting their wives' demands for everything from new appliances to sexual bliss."  So, ladies, continue to demand that new toaster and G Spot orgasm.  Yes, it will drive your man to tomfoolery and escapades, but at least he won't be involved in some depraved orgy.  Got it?  His tomfoolery (which you have mistaken for a bukkake party) is your fault.  Duh.

I could continue, but why bother.  It's obvious this book is less about what makes men tick and more about women feeling bad about themselves and excusing men for some truly assinine behavior.  I wonder how many women read this and thought, "Wow, this really makes sense.  This advice hits home.  I'm gonna please the holy Hell out of my man so he doesn't want tomfoolery and I can still get those appliances!"  I understand it was 1972, a time when everyone was trying to get in touch with everything (except, apparently, barbers).  Self-help books were the rage, the new opiate of the Me Generation.  They were bought by the boatload by people who had so little understanding of themselves that they turned to books that had even less understanding then they did.

A book on understanding men wouldn't be complete without a section on pedophilia.

So how did I get this book?  Well, that's a funny story, actually.  I got it at work.  There are a few of us who find wildly strange books and then give them to each other, usually in secret.  This ended up in my mailbox.  No note.  No knowing glance from a co-worker who would be waiting for my reaction.  What?  Did you think I bought it?





Stealing the Books of Blood

As a teen I read a lot of horror fiction.  A good part of my library

My copy of this book looks the same ... except
without the "By the author of ..."

was the works of Stephen King.  I read everything I could get my hands on, including interviews.  One name that kept popping up whenever King was asked about forthcoming writers worth reading was Clive Barker.  He was the future of horror.  I knew I had to keep an eye out for this Barker character.

It was almost the summer of 1986.  I was 15.  I had a job at a campground resort.  I sold fun.  We had a small campground store that had a paperback rack.  It was mostly Danielle Steel garbage and Mary Higgins Clark.  (I've tried reading one of Clark's books.  Garbage of the worst sort.)  Every once in a while you'd find a V.C. Andrews book, which drove all the intellectual teen girls wild.  But then, out of the blue, was one copy of the first volume in Clive Barker's Books of Blood.  Sweet mother of horror fiction.  There it was.  Taunting me.  A date stamp was at the top of the book.  May 26 1986.  The cheesy cover alluded to greater things inside.

I opened the book.  "The Midnight Meat Train."  "Pig Blood Blues."  These were story titles I could get behind.  "Sex, Death and Starshine" sounded like crap, but that didn't matter.  Here was the book I had wanted for far too long.  One problem.  It was $2.95.  A meager sum.  (Yes, paperbacks used to be under three bucks.)  I wasn't getting paid for a few days, however, and I was broke.  We had one copy.  Cue the dramatic music.

I figured I would be safe if I left it on the rack.  Books rarely sold, and when they did they were usually to those intellectual teen girls oh-so-sexy in their shorts as they lounged around the pool reading and inspiring teen erections.  (Really, what didn't inspire those?)  Or they sold to mothers who needed a break from the kids, and that break could be found in the steamy hetero world of Steel.

I couldn't risk it, though.  If some kid like me came in with his family, he would see it and snap it right up.  I could hide it behind another book ... one unlikely to sell quickly.  That had worked well for me in the past at my job and at various stores.  It wasn't foolproof, though.  All it took was someone pawning through the titles and nabbing it or seeing it was out of place and correcting that.  It could also be discovered by someone who, like me, was hip to the hiding trick.

That left me with one option.  Theft. 

I've done my share of shoplifting in my time.  These days I think the only thing really worth stealing is art.  I find it to be the ultimate compliment.  In my teen years, though, anything was fair game.  I did think about whether or not anything I took was worth the risk, however.  This Barker book caused me some great mental pains.

Stealing a book was almost unforgivable.  I would be denying someone else the right to read it.  I'd be doing the same thing if I bought it, but by stealing it I would be altering the social agreement that comes with capitalism.  If you have the means, you pay for it.  Otherwise you do without.  It wasn't food, and I wasn't starving.  It was a book, a book I could go to any local bookstore and find once I got my pay check.  I had wanted this for so long, though, that common sense and decency was taking a backseat to pure, unadulterated greed.  I wanted it.  I wanted it now.  And I didn't give a crap that I didn't have the cash.

"Steal me," the mask on the cover whispered in my mind.  "Take me home.  Caress me.  Smell my pages."

So I took it.  I read it.  I enjoyed it.  I have it to this day.  Admirable?  No.  Understandable?  Of course.  It was a moment of weakness mixed with fear.  It's the same feelings that put millions of people in debt with credit card companies. 

At least I bought the other volumes. 


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me a commission.

The History of Headbanging

Let him who have understanding reckon the number of the Beast ... If you recognize that, you're a metalhead.  My teen years were filled with the stuff.  I still enjoy it (Iron Maiden never gets old).  That being said, I had to grab Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal when I saw it at Borders back when the place wasn't an empty shell reeking of bad coffee and despair.  Ian Christie, the author, gave his book a bold title, especially considering the "complete" history is done in less than 400 pages.  A true metalhead will know something is going to be missed.

To Christie's credit, the book tries to be thorough, and doesn't do a horrible job of it.  I discovered some things I didn't know, and I realized there was stuff missing.  (The book gives more than a passing nod to the Misfits, but no mention is made of Kryst the Conqueror.  I'm sure anyone can make this complaint about any band, however, as it would be impossible to cover everything.)  I doubt any metalhead could truly complain about that, though, unless he or she hated Metallica.  (The book covers a lot of Metallica.)

As an overview, Christie does a fine job of hitting all the major points in heavy metal history.  He doesn't shy away from the dark stuff, either, unlike Chuck Klosterman who revels in the safety of hard rock and heavy metal.  Christie gets that there is a portion of this music that is truly dangerous and subversive.  He understands it.  He writes about it.  When writing about Mayhem and the infamy around that band, he doesn't sensationalize it or rally against it.  He presents it in a matter-of-fact format that fits with the rest of his book.  It is just another section of heavy metal history.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

Christie's book is, as a quote from Maxim on its back cover reads, "a must for all fans."  There is really no reason not to recommend it. Well, unless you only like pop music.  In that case, you may want to read something else.


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this book with hard-earned U.S. cash.  If you click on a link this, you may end up putting some less-than-hard-earned U.S. cash in my coffers.  Filthy lucre.

Suck on This, Politicians!

 Paladin Press is a favorite of mine.  Yes, much of its output verges on paranoia, but among all the books on how to murder someone (and easily get away with it!) are some real gems.  Henceforth I present Politics & Dirty Tricks: A Guide to Screwing Up the System by V.R. Farb and published way back in 1995.  Its lessons remain pertinent today, and you can apply them to your every day life, such as revenge against a boss or a cop who has done you wrong.  Revenge isn't only fun; it's healthy!

The book, which I received to review back when it was first published and have held onto it ever since, is a mere 90 pages.  Those 90 pages plant some great seeds, though.  Not much of it was new to me, but the average reader is going to put it down and immediately figure out about eight things they can do to the person they want to act as karma on.  Political sabotage just ain't for Republicans anymore.

Tampering with schedules, causing IRS stings and turning press conferences upside down are all covered within this book's pages, as well as actual tales of what happened when these methods were used.  Some worked.  Some backfired.  There are lessons to be learned from both, however.  And while all of it is geared toward ruining a politican (something that seems incredibly easy to do), the astute student can easily see how to manipulate these ideas in order to turn them against one's own enemies.  After all, upon reading about how you can cause a political campaign to lose thousands of dollars through very little effort, it takes but a second to turn those same strategies against your average joe.

Granted, a lot of the things covered in this book are ... illegal.  Despite the illegality, it's extremely hard to get caught doing a lot of this stuff.  Simple fact, plain and true.  The bigger something is, the harder it is to trace the monkeywrench that derailed it.  And then there's the fact that the things in here that aren't illegal are still highly effective.

Election season is coming.  There are stealth candidates doing their usual run to take over school boards and city councils.  If you don't like them, you can do more than vote against them.  You can send them back to the rock they came out from under.  It's easy, fun, and usually fairly affordable.  Have fun with it.  Make it a family project.  Just don't forget, though, that what can be used against your enemy politician can also be used against the candidate you like.  If you're like me, however, you'll realize they're usually different piles of the same shit, so what is good for the goose is definitely good for the gander.  Happy subverting!


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Yep, I got this book to review.  Clicking on a link may earn me a commission, and who knows?  Maybe you'll get on a list, too.

Lumley Tackles Lovecraft!

I, like about eight million other people, was introduced to writer Brian Lumley through his Necroscope book.  I have fond memories of that book.  I had just come out to California to make my home, and that is the book I read while waiting to fall asleep in a sleazy motel room.  I picked up the rest of the books as they came out.  I also kept an eye out for the author's other works.  Imagine my surprise a few years ago when I found The Burrowers Beneath, which is Lumley mucking around in the world H.P. Lovecraft, a favorite of mine, created.    

DAW Books published this in 1974, the year Carrie came out and the year Rubik's cube was invented.  West Germany was hosting the World Cup, and a young (presumably) man name Ward D. Griffiths bought, at a mere .95 cents, #91 in DAW Books SF series.  I assume Griffiths was the original purchaser of my copy of the book, as his name is scrawled on the inside in ink.  The signature is in trembling cursive, indicating that the signee was either old or had just graduated from block letters.  When he would've turned the page he would have found himself greeted with a slightly cartoon-like drawing of Cthulhu acting as a bookend.

I have no idea of what Griffiths thought of the book, or even if he finished it.  Lovecraft's original fiction is terrifying stuff, and the writers who dabble in his universe are often equally unnerving.  He may have made it to the chapter titled "Cement Surroundings" and stopped when he read, "What of the indescribable droning chant which I often heard issuing from Sir Amery's room in the dead of night?"  Lumley, like the man who influenced this book, knew that when writing in Lovecraft's world it is the unknown and unseen that is the most frightening.  Like many of the other writers who have fashioned similar works, Lumley seems to delight in hinting at the things behind closed doors (or in this case, under the earth).  It works, despite the bombastic tagline on the book's cover ("The Earth's original rulers are waking!").

It's been a few years since I've read the book.  As someone who enjoys Lovecraft and the writers inspired by him, I can say with certainity that Lumley's book will be kept on my shelf to pass down to my daughter once the Elder Gods come to eat my soul.  I don't know if she'll find the novel as gripping as I did, but there are enough of my personality traits in her that I somehow can't help but think that at some point in her life she is going to turn to Lovecraft and those stories inspired by his imagination and maybe shudder a bit more than usual on some rainy, windy night, much like I envision Griffiths, he of the trembling hand. 

I have quite a few Lovecraft books in my collection, and I have several others inspired by him.  The Burrowers Beneath is one of the ones that stays fairly true to the horror legend.  It feels just as timeless as Lovecraft's work, and a hundred years from now when people are still studying and discussing the master, Lumley's book will come up in conversation.  Unearthly things never seem to die, do they?

Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this book and was not given a review copy.  If you feel bold enough to click on a link, I may earn a commission.

The Big Rape And My Depressing End

As I watch the sales for Nothing Men slowly creep up (very slowly), I can't help but think back to the first publisher who got the manuscript.  He turned it down because the end was "too depressing." Of course it is.  It's supposed to be.  It's not a Disney story.  What does that have to do with 1953's The Big Rape?  Well, I'm curious as to how much the times have changed when a horror novel with a depressing is rejected, yet a publisher in the early '50s thought it made perfect business sense to publish a book about a woman who trades her "passion for revenge" which just happened to be called The Big Rape.  That's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

I have never read James Wakefield Burke's book.  It could be about rapeseed farmers for all I know.  Somehow, judging by the booze swiggin' men in the background and the half-open shirt of the woman in the foreground, I doubt it.  Were the 1950s more tolerant than the modern era?  Were books like this one commonplace on the shelves and spinner racks?  Again, negative on both.  I do think, however, publishers took more chances.

To think that a horror story such as the one I wrote should have anything but a depressing ending says to me that the publisher had no knowledge of or appreciation for what I was going for with the manuscript.  His idea of horror was probably limited to slasher films (if that) and teen vampires.  What I wrote was more along lines of Jack Ketchum, and there is an audience for that.  Yes, what I wrote may be difficult to sit through at times, but it should be.  Knowing that, I kind of wonder how the story was handled in Burke's work.  Was it graphic and violent?  Or were the rape scenes (if any) kind of glossed over, as was standard for that time period?

In the end, I'm glad that publisher told me my conclusion was too depressing.  I had gone back and forth between two different endings (both radically different), and I went with the depressing one because it felt "right."  His criticism of it told me I was on the mark.  I may have lost out having it published, but now the book is out there, and I can still shop it around to traditional publishers while maintaining all the rights to it.  Win win?  Yes.  All things considered, though, I kind of doubt my book is more offensive or depressing than something called The Big Rape.  It almost has to be, right?


Mandatory FTC Disclaimer: Clicking on a link may earn me a commission.

Excerpt From My Nothing Men Novel

Here's an excerpt from Nothing Men, which is coming soon to the Kindle.  I may post more later, but here is a tease.

***

 

“When my momma found out she was pregnant with me, the whole village was happy. They all hoped I would be a girl because there hadn’t been a girl born here in a long time. The last one who was left with her momma when she was only eight. That was years before I came around.” She suppressed a belch.

“Okay,” Amanda said. She didn’t know what this had to do with Charles’ name, though.

 “Like I said, everyone wanted a girl ... everyone but my daddy. He wanted a boy so he could do man
things with him. Teach him trades and all that. He was a carpenter and did butchering and taxidermy stuff, too. From what my momma told me, he was the only one in Valley Bottom who wanted a boy.”

 “That’s kinda weird. Shouldn’t people just have been happy because your mom was pregnant?”

 Charles seemed surprised by Amanda’s comment. “No. It ain’t like that.”

 “Okay, so your dad wanted a boy and named you Charles. That’s not that sad.”

 Charles leaned back on the table. “You wanna hear the story, or you wanna make up your own?”

 “Sorry.”

Charles stood up and began to pace. “When I was born, my daddy was devastated, but everyone else was thrilled. My mom, to make my daddy feel better, let him name me Charles.”

“Did anyone else care about that?”

 “No. Everyone was just glad I had a pussy.”

 Amanda never heard it put that way before, but she prodded her new friend to continue.

 “My dad started drinkin’ more and takin’ more pills ‘cause he was depressed. My mom said it was meth, but I never knew. I just knew he never seemed quite right. Momma Rose told me later that he was brain damaged to begin with. My daddy was a retard, but people still brought him their animals to work on.”

“He was a vet, too?” Amanda asked.

“Not like a real one who went to school, but he could do things. Fix them and stuff. Sometimes he couldn’t, and they died. I’d help him ... once I got old enough to hand him the tools. I think I was about four. I remember helpin’ him with Mr. Ash.”

Amanda shuddered. She couldn’t imagine helping her father operate on animals.

“When I was five -- and this I remember -- old Mrs. Quinn brought her dog in to be fixed. It was humping everything ... even a cat, which I found funny. My mom wasn’t home, so my daddy asked me to help him with the tools.”

“You saw a dog get fixed?” Amanda asked. She felt a little sick. She wasn’t sure what “fixed” was when it came to a dog, but she imagined it had something to do with its balls and maybe a sharp pair of scissors or something.

“I seen a lot more than that, doll girl. It was no biggie.”

“It’s gross, though.”

“No. Anyway, my daddy put the dog on the work table and knocked it out with some drugs he had in a needle. And the last thing I can remember is him turning to me and sticking me with the same needle.” She pointed to the side of her neck. “Right here.”

“What the fuck?” Amanda exclaimed. “Your dad drugged you? Why?”

***

We Are ... The Mentally Superior, And We Are Coming For You

It was the 1973.  Pennsylvania had yet to deal with Three Mile Island, Budd Dwyer or the Philadelphia police torching a city block to get some black people out of town.  The Pennsylvania Department of Education, perhaps anticipating such disasters, published a booklet titled A Guide for Parents ... Mentally Gifted Children and Youth.  In the mid 1970s my parents received this booklet.  I was the Mentally Gifted Children and Youth.  To be more exact ... I was a mentally gifted child.

The booklet itself seems to take its cue from a lot of what made Nazi Germany so memorable.  That would be a false sense of superiority and a strange version of eugenics.  Patriotism is sprinkled throughout, too, such as in the Foreword.  "In our democracy, we have an obligation to assure that every child has the opportunity to develop to the utmost of his abilities and to encourage him to do so."  (It's always a "him.")

Chapter 1 answers the burning question: Who are the Mentally Gifted?  I was apparently one of the lads whose "outstanding intellectual and/or creative ability" is in the "top 3 percent of the nation's school-age population."  It then proceeds to list two generalizations about us mutant children.  "Mentally gifted children do not follow a uniform pattern in any delineation of their individual nature, interests and needs."  And, "The typical gifted child is likely to be superior in almost all measurable human traits.  (There are exceptions, of course, but we are describing here a statistical majority of those classified as gifted.)"  I am not making this up.  I was apparently superior in all measurable traits.  All I can say is I'm glad this was in a time before every kid was medicated to the point immobility.

The booklet then discusses the needs of the gifted.  According to the PA Department of Education, if I wasn't given the opportunity for exploration and experience, I would become bored and develop anti-social attitudes and behaviors.  Looks like someone was asleep at the wheel in my school.  Luckily, my mental superiority meant that I targeted all the right people with my anti-social behavior.  Just ask the staff of Pocono Mt. Senior High.

One of the things that was hoped to be achieved with us was that we would, by adolescence, be preparing for marriage and family life.  Yeah.  Seriously.  Apparently, adolescence is particularly tough on the gifted because we reached that stage long before we are teens.  "He will probably experience a sense of isolation," it reads.  "He may have a greater problem developing appropriate sex roles and relationships.  He may abandon intellectual activities which are not accepted by the group in favor of more ordinary pursuits.  As an alternative, he may persist in being different and sever the lines of social communication."  Those who know me know are nodding their heads in agreement.  Guess what?  I don't need you people!  I'm Mentally Superior!

The booklet lists many activities that are to be of interest to the gifted child.  All the usual suspects are on there, like the Camera Club.  I imagine that is like the sexting of today ... or not.  It then ends on a special note under the chapter "Due Process: Right to Education for the Gifted."  It lists some regulations and states, "These regulations extend the right to education and the right to due process to all gifted and talented school-age persons..."  No need to bore you anymore than I already have, but let's just say I probably went through more evaluations then were necessary in school.

To say this booklet is creepy is an understatement.  I remember being pulled out of the First or Second grade to answer a bunch of questions.  I recall telling the woman interviewing me all about my theories on the Loch Ness Monster.  The next thing I knew my parents were discussing my education at the dinner table and telling me I was going into a class for the "smart kids."  We had access to computers before the other kids did, and we got to go to special events and museums that other kids weren't privy to.  All of this to ensure I married right and didn't blow up banks.  Did it work?  Yes and no.  The one thing it taught me to do was question authority, which is probably the most beneficial thing anyone can do.  While the other kids blindly listened to teachers in Third and Fourth grade, I was challenging them ... in a respectful way.  Later I became a lot less respectful as the teachers became a lot more authoritarian.

I don't think schools give out indoctrination booklets like this anymore.  They've gotten smarter.  I'm glad my parents kept my copy, though.  It explains a lot of my early schooling.