Ramblings of Jeff Somers, author
Jeff Somers (www.jeffreysomers.com) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books, Chum from Tyrus Books, and We Are Not Good People from Pocket Books. He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Jeff publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris. His guitar playing is a plague upon his household and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices.
SO, since I am very busy and important, I will taking part in a PodCast run by the terrific Susan Wingate:
WHEN: Thursday, 10/24, 1PM EST
WHERE: http://dialoguebetweenthelines.com
We’ll discuss books, writing, and other related topics. Assuming I am sober. Also assuming I can work this crazy thing called The Internet, or a phone.
Tune in and cackle as I stutter, speak amazing malapropisms, and make a fool of myself (as usual).
I’ve been a huge fan of Breaking Bad throughout its run, and so I watched the finale, Felina, with a mixture of joy and horror, because it was very well done and it also meant it was ending. You don’t often see television shows that have 60+ episodes that are all reliably excellent. Of all the episodes of Breaking Bad, the worst ones were still pretty damn great. Grading them, I don’t think there would any below a B- in my book, and even those would be rare.
So, yeah: I’m a fan.
The Internet encourages instant reactions to things and then a quick Forgetting. Breaking Bad was a few weeks ago and it’s already fading from the Internet like a dim memory from childhood. But I’ve been thinking about it still. Because the finale was great, and because I think it accomplished something truly amazing. So let’s talk about menace.
“…Shovel them under and let me work…
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.”
-Carl Sandburg, 1918
THE FUCKERS think they can stiff me on the drinks, but I’m unstiffable, baby, and I’ve got them all on probation; I am not soaking up another fucking round until the Fuckers buy one, just out of common courtesy. Look at ’em, the fat fucks. Yeah, wave at me, fuck you. Wave back though. Never know.
Hate this bar. Too much fucking brass. Looks like a goddamned machine. Matches, matches…Norma giving me that look of disapproval, fuck her, over there with Chuckles, playing the faithful girlfriend. Chuckles smoked like a goddamn chimney, and you never saw her complain to him. No law against smoking, yet. Goddamned bluenoses ruining it for the rest of us, kill myself if I want.
Hands on my shoulders, it’s Charlie Hammonds, maybe reading my mind.
“How’re you doing, Mack?”
His breath is a natural disaster, a rich supply of pepperoni, scotch, cigarettes, and bar nuts, all of it wheezed into my airspace with gusto, against all local ordinances. I wince, but manage a smile. Say something about being fine.
Chuck signals the bartender, a busty brunette who smiles at me in a friendly way, instant erection and quick fantasy, three seconds of something that will never happen. I flash my charmer smile, not much but all I have. Chuck lingers, sipping a new drink. Irritating man. The bartender waited a moment, was she eyeing me can’t tell, now she walks away, and I’m left with Chuckie. Bastard. I smile at him and beam death threats his way via karma police band.
“Listen, Mack, got a proposition for you.”
“Fantastic. Buy me a drink, then. No one else has.”
Chuck’s always a soft touch, and he laughs, and brings the brunette back to me with a wave of a fifty dollar bill. I myself cannot remember what a fifty feels like. I smile at the bartender like a rich man anyway.
“He’s got a proposition for me.” I say.
She grins. “Be careful. He looks mangy.”
“He’ll have a scotch on the rocks, a double.” Chuckles says, oblivious.
Eyes meet. I shrug my eyebrows, she pours liquor silently. Could happily murder Chuckles, wonder if she’d rat me out. Takes Chuck’s money and walks off, I eye her ass appreciatively, wondering if I have it in me to be a seducer. Am I the guy who picks up bar chicks and bangs them? Can’t tell from internal probing. Never know with Chuckles hanging about like a bad skin.
“So listen, chum, and let me talk to you about something.”
He’s already talking, goddammit, the words coming out in a mushy jumble drowned out by the buzz of bar noise, sounds like a foreign language at first, until some mysterious higher function inside me deciphers it, translates it. Monstrous little bugger. Images of murder, Chuckles looking pale and wan, bled dry.
“Norma has this friend, you see -great girl, knockout, and she’s been bugging me to set her up with someone, and I figured, you’re perfect: no noticeable scars, relative good health, no public history of VD: perfect! Whatya say, double with Norma and me sometime? Come on, it’ll be -”
Glance back at the bartender, was she looking at me? Can’t be sure. Chuckie is still droning on. Norma, christ, he had no idea, there was no fucking way Norma wanted me to date one of her disciples, her minions, one of the many shellacked women ready to drain me of my precious bodily fluids and make me into a Chuckle. Pod people. Always recruiting. Had to be strong, forget this male bonding polite bullshit.
“No thanks, Chuck.”
Crestfallen. Idiot.
BUY ME
Booklist thinks every American should be reading my newest novel CHUM:
““Mary and Bickerman have always been at the center of their social circle, a rowdy group happy to share postcollegiate, booze-fueled shenanigans. Holidays are punctuated by raucous parties, drunken confessions, tears, fights, and uneasy sleep. Through the fog of alcohol and shared memories, loyalties are tested, allegiances are broken, new friendships are cemented, and a grisly secret is shared. While Mary and Bickerman’s marriage is nothing to emulate, the novel’s deeply flawed characters are surprisingly relatable. From the frequently misunderstood Tom to the preternaturally gorgeous Miriam, readers will see pieces of themselves, significant others, close friends, or fellow drinking buddies in the diverse crew. Highlighting the tension often found in even close-knit groups, Somers uses different members of the social circle to narrate shared events and private monologues. As the reader gains perspective on the nonlinear story, shocking secrets soon come to light. Combining elements of Jonathan Tropper, Tom Perrotta, and Augusten Burroughs, Somers’ incisive, pull-no-punches examination of adult friendship is refreshingly witty. Tautly paced and expertly assembled, Chum is a darkly comic, deeply insightful, and wildly original novel.”
Huzzahs to me.
Since I’m returning to the hallowed halls of NY Comic Con for the first time since 2009, I figured it was a good time to revisit this essay from The Inner Swine that dealt with my previous experience.
MY NAME is Jeff Somers and I’m a writer. I’ve written a lot of things you almost certainly have never ever heard of but currently I’m most known for the Avery Cates series published by Orbit Books. People think that being a published author is a glamorous life filled with champagne and solid gold toilets but let me set you straight: I spend my days with four cats wandering my house in a tattered bathrobe clutching a bottle of booze to my chest and muttering.
Since the Avery Cates books are Science Fiction novels and are by the way the greatest novels ever written in the English language and if you don’t buy copies IMMEDIATELY you will suffer from cultural illiteracy and be mocked at parties, it was decided that I should attend this year’s New York Comic Con as a Literary Guest, where I would attempt to charm and bamboozle the good, pious fans of the Earth into paying some small attention to me. So I gathered my courage, put on some pants, and with my wife The Duchess in tow and we headed off to Two Days in the Uncanny Valley of the Javits Convention Center in New York.
SO, I will be attending Comic Con in NYC this October – your prayers have been answered, whether those prayers have to do with seeing me in person at a huge event or knowing precisely where I will be one day this month in order to rob my house while I am absent. And several scenarios in-between, ranging from assassination to leaving $9.2 million in drug money in my living room so I can establish an irrevocable trust in your son’s name.
DATE & TIME: Most of this is to TBD, but I’ll be there on Thursday October 10.
WHY IN GOD’S NAME: I’ll be signing and giving away free copies of Part 1 of my upcoming novel We Are Not Good People, otherwise known as Trickster. If you read Trickster this year and thought you’d read the whole book, you would be wrong. It’s just part 1.
Oh, I’ll also do other things: Sign anything, be giving away whatever I have in my pockets, dancing for nickles, and generally abusing myself.
If you’re going to be at NYCC yourself on the 10th, let me know and let’s try to meet up, chat, have coffee, whatever. If you’re there on another day, let me know anyway and maybe we can meet outside the con (my badge is just for the 10th). Email me at jdxs@jeffreysomers.com if you want to try to get together.
ONWARD!
BUY ME
So, as almost none of you were apparently aware, I was holding a contest for signed copies of my new novel Chum, and exactly seven folks entered. Perhaps the entry was a bit too convoluted – I admit it.
Live and learn. Or live and drink. Either way, I win.
Still, the entries I did get were wayyyyy cool. I asked people to surf on over to the official Chum Website and leave a guestbook message for the fictional couple that star in the book, Dave and Mary. I planned to award a signed copy of the book to the ten most creative entries. We only got seven total. Apparently I am not as famous and hip as I thought I am.
But the entries I did get were pretty awesome. Here they are, with commentary:
Despair.
NOTE: Are there spoilers here? OF COURSE THERE ARE.
I’m a huge fan of Breaking Bad. I may have posted about it here before, in fact. At this point I think the only people who don’t think Breaking Bad is easily one of the greatest TV shows ever are those effetes who refuse to own a TV because obviously and those who refuse to watch it out of some sort of weird pride. And, of course, small children.
For the rest of us, it’s been one hell of a ride. An almost perfect show, with very few weak spots. And the last episode, Ozymandias, was one of the few times in my life I’ve sat with my mouth open for an extended period of time. I could have easily been photographed and inserted as the example illustration under the head MIND: BLOWN.
I thought the previous episode, To’hajiilee was just slightly slow. Not bad, mind you, just … somewhat deliberately paced. I enjoyed moments of that episode immensely and overall would give it an 8 or 9 out of 10. But it felt like they held back a little, and it was irritating. And then in Ozymandias, Vine Gilligan and company did the impossible: They made Walter White the hero of the story.
Stare into the abyss that is my music, and the abyss will rock your world. Or possibly just stare back at you.
Here, songs:
Song595
Song596
Song597
Song598
Song600
Song604
Why do I do this to you? More importantly, why do I do it to myself? I dunno. I got the music in me, I suppose.
The usual disclaimer: 1. I admit these are not great music; 2. I claim copyright anyway, so there; 3. No, I cannot do anything about the general quality of the mix, as I am incompetent.
SPOILERS: There are many. If you’re foolish enough to fear spoilers, don’t read this. YE BEEN WARNED.
So, Gone Home is a video game. Maybe you’ve heard of it, either because of its shocking nature as a first-person game created by some of the folks who worked on Bioshock that doesn’t have any guns, monsters, or action gameplay of any kind, or because of it’s storyline involving a teenage girl realizing she is gay and finding her first love. Or maybe you haven’t heard of it, because unlike me you have better things to do.
So, if you haven’t heard of it, here’s the basic rundown: It’s first-person, as I said, so you see everything as if you were there walking around. You do have a character, a college-age girl home from a year abroad in Europe only to discover the new house your family moved into is empty, your family missing, and all sorts of mysterious clues scattered everywhere. The point of the game is to figure out where your family is.
Here I will spoil it all for you, because I must: You slowly discover, after wandering the house and finding keys and newspaper clippings and concert tickets and listening to audio journals your kid sister left behind, that your parents are off at couples counseling and your little sister has run away with her girlfriend.
That’s it.
In other words, presumably in the game’s universe your parents return the next morning, y’all call the cops on your sister, and a few hours later she’s being yelled at extensively.