Bizzaro Book Review: Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross

Guys, you know that thing where you ask your wife, “What’s wrong honey?” and your wife says, “Nothing” but what she really means is, “You are in trouble, but I am not going to tell you why, so there“? This book is about that.

Yes. You heard me right. If you are a married man, this is the most terrifying book you will read. EVER.

Mr. Peanut is about marriage and murder, and the contempt bred by familiarity that bridges the gap between the two. The narrative follows three sets of marriages which are intertwined in such a way as to make them into a literal literary Möbius strip.

If that sounds confusing to you, then trust me, it is. Quentin Tarantino could learn a thing or two about non-linear storytelling from Adam Ross. The strange and twisted tales of three men and their wives overlap in ways that are not immediately apparent.

The story in a nutshell (heh heh) is this: David Peppin is accused of murdering his wife, and two detectives must sort through the dizzying threads of his story to determine whether he is really the killer.

But far from being a straightforward murder mystery, this story delves deep into the dark side of marriage, bringing to light the pain, joy, and ultimate boredom that can arise out of spending so many years of your life with the same person.

The greatest problem that this book faces is that it incredibly clever. This might seem like a strange thing to criticize, especially for the guy who absolutely adores House of Leaves, but the problem here is that the cleverness overtakes the flow of the story. The disjointed non-linear narrative is fine to a point, but when the book drops one narrative thread which had previously been the driving force of the book and jumps into another almost completely unrelated story for the space of more than a hundred pages, it’s somewhat disorienting and discouraging to the reader.  I understand that the jump was necessary to complete the books unique Möbius strip structure, but in my mind the novelty of that structure was not enough to justify the sacrifices made to the story’s forward momentum.

Having said that, this book is still a fantastic read, quite unlike anything else I’ve ever reviewed here before. In spite of its occasional failings it triumphs as a treatise on marriage, infidelity, love and redemption. If you’re looking for a book that will grab your mind and suck you into its twisted world, look no further. Adam Ross’s Mr. Peanut has got what you need.

A Short Story for the Long Tail

Tomorrow is the big day!

Those of you who read my blog and Twitter feed regularly know what I’m talking about. Yes ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow marks the midpoint of the series of “How Not To Be A Terrible Foster Parent” classes my wife and I are taking. And also, there’s some little thing about me publishing a book?

In all seriousness though, I’m super excited about this. Not really because I think this is going to be the magical day that changes everything and makes me rich, but it’s the start of something new, and in some ways, the end of something old.

See, for the longest time I looked down on the idea of self-publishing. My philosophy was basically this: if your work isn’t crap someone will publish it; if you’ve decided to self-publish it’s because your ego is too big to admit that your writing stinks.

I’ve…mellowed on that position quite a bit over the years. It’s true that there is a lot of garbage out there in the electronic publishing universe, but that only makes sense. If you create a system where anyone can publish their work, your really shouldn’t be surprised if when you get a fair amount of sub par submissions. But there are plenty of legitimately good authors who have put good work out there on the electronic marketplace, and when you get right down to it, it’s not that difficult to sort the good from the bad.

So I’m self-publishing. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on the traditional marketplace altogether, but I’ve come to realize a couple of things that help me to understand the divide between traditional publishing and self-publishing that informed my decision to go the electronic route, at least for now.

First, traditional publishers are looking for traditional books. I know there are some rare exceptions out there. The fact that House of Leaves ever saw the light of day at all is  testament to the fact that some publishers are still willing to take a risk on something radical and different. But what people forget is that big publishers exist for one reason and one reason only. It’s not to promote young authors. It’s not to bring a new and exciting creative vision into the world. It’s to make money.

Some people look down on this, but these people are, frankly, stupid. If you’ve got a company, the whole point is making money. Which means that you focus on the things you know people are going to buy, like thrillers, mysteries and romances. And yes, I know that I’ve done my share of whining about genres, but the truth is the casual reader isn’t interested in experimental literature and ergodic fiction. They want to buy what they’ve always bought and big publishers would be fools not to deliver that kind of fiction to them.

The second and possible more important factor in my decision to self-pub my work was this: no one publishes novellas any more. Again, I know there are a few exceptions, but generally those exceptions are all from previously published authors with name recognition. There’s probably a fascinating discussion we could have as to why this is, but I’d imagine we’d find that the bottom line is money again.

My book fails both of the previously mentioned standards. First, it’s a story told through the voice of a dog who is facing the zombie apocalypse. I don’t even begin to know how to classify it as a genre. It’s got zombies in it, so you might say it’s horror, but the truth is there’s just as much humor woven in there as there is horror.

Second, it’s short. About 20,000 words to be precise.

But in spite of these things, I think it can find an audience. Perhaps not an audience large enough to justify a publisher’s interest, but there are enough people out there on the long tail of readership who are looking for something fresh and interesting for me to believe that this little book might actually go somewhere.

If you think you might be one of these people then I invite you to join me tomorrow for the launch of A Prairie Home Apocalypse or: What the Dog Saw. Together we’ll see how far a strange little story like this can go.

[Oh, and please don’t comment and tell me how I’m using the terms “self-publishing” or “traditional publishing” incorrectly. I’ve read all the petty arguments about semantics, and…it just doesn’t matter people. Let it go.]

In Defense of Twilight

 

So here’s the deal people: I kinda hate Twilight. I tried to read it once, back in its heyday thinking, “Hey, this is super popular. It can’t be all bad.” But, oh was I wrong. The plot was banal and uninteresting, but even worse than that the prose limped along in uninspired fits and spurts that felt harsh and unnatural.

It was so difficult to stomach that after struggling through more than half of the book I gave up. Since then I’ve been an active participant on the Stephanie Meyers hate-wagon. I bash her writing as often as I can, I pick apart the bizarre threads of her plots, and I absolutely adore the Reasoning with Vampires website.

BUT.

I am not a moron. There are some who may disagree on this point, but let’s ignore them, yes?

I know people who love Twilight. I mean really really love. When they read Twilight, it was the same experience for them as reading House of Leaves was for me. And there are millions of these people all over the world. Why?

We could be cynical and say that it’s all because of advertising dollars and irrational hype, but that doesn’t jive with me.

You may not know this, but I’m kind of a fan of P. T. Barnum. Everyone knows P. T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But most people don’t know that he didn’t stop talking after he said that. One of the other things he said, in fact one of his core philosophies was this: “Do whatever crazy thing you have to do to advertise your stuff, but know this: if your product sucks all the advertising in the world won’t make it a success.” Okay, so he didn’t say it exactly that way, but you get the gist.

The people I know who love Twilight don’t love it because of advertising and they don’t love it because everyone else loves it. They love it because there’s something in there, amidst all the tangled prose and watered down plot that speaks to them on a very personal level.

When Stephanie Meyer talks about the inspiration for Twilight she tells the story of a dream that arrested her attention and inspired her to sit down and work on the story whenever she could grab a spare moment. In other words, the story meant something personal to her. It welled up from the very core of her being to the point that she could not stop herself from writing it.

That is what I believe has given the Twilight Saga the staying power it has enjoyed for so long. Of course there are problems with Meyer’s writing, but in spite of those problems millions of women have connected with that same tug of urgency Meyer felt when she first conceived the idea.

She wasn’t just writing a story. She was writing her story.

We could all learn a thing or two from her. We spend a lot of time trying to hone our craft and learn the intricacies of structure, but ultimately there is something greater than these things. If we’re going to write a story, we need to be sure it is a story we love. Because all the wonderful prose and perfect plotting in the world can’t replace what every story really needs: a soul.

Only when we give a little piece of ourselves dug from out of the deepest corner of our hearts will we be able to truly move and affect our readers.