The Next Big Thing!

Today I am taking part in the networked blog interview, The Next Big Thing. I was nominated last week by Joe Mynhardt, a gifted editor at Crystal Lake Publishing. A preview of the novel that my agent (Paula Munier at Talcott Notch Literary Agency) and I are shopping, Disintegration, can be read below:

1) What is the working title of your next book?

Disintegration

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

After writing my first book, Transubstantiate, I wanted to write something that was not nearly as complicated. So a first-person, linear story was what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to tap into some of my personal fears and the worst possible situation that I could imagine was losing my family, seeing them die in front of me. That was the inception for this story. It’s basically Dexter meets Falling Down.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

I call it a neo-noir, transgressive thriller.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I’ve always been drawn to Viggo Mortenson as an actor, he’s intense. I’m also a big fan of Christian Bale, he’d be perfect, I think. This is for the unnamed protagonist, the man who falls apart.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When a man sees his family die in a horrible car accident he quickly falls apart, disintegrates, into a life of vengeful crime and dark deeds.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

My agent is shopping it now. I think it’s only a matter of time.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I wrote the first half over six months in my first semester at Murray State University, under Lynn Pruett, as part of my MFA. I later wrote the second half in one week on a massive purge between freelance art direction gigs the following year.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Well, obviously the Darkly Dreaming Dexter series, as well as work by Dennis Lehane, Will Christopher Baer, Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones, Paul Tremblay. Maybe American Psycho.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The original push came from Christopher Dwyer, who wanted to see something neo-noir but simplified. And I wanted to honor my family, if that’s possible, by “killing them off” in this book.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s a tragedy, for sure. There is a lot of misery in this book, but there’s also love, hope, sex, drugs, violence, redemption, and vengeance. I think it works on several levels—as a fun, fast read, as a layered, dense, immersive cautionary tale, and also as a literary work filled with metaphor and imagery. Hopefully you won’t see the ending coming. I didn’t.

FOR A ROUGH DRAFT OF THE FIRST CHAPTER GO HERE!

Up NOW, December 5th, is Nik Korpon, Caleb J. Ross, Simon West-Bulford, David James Keaton, and Monica Drake.