Thursday, November 21, 2013

Fifty years



I was six years old on November 22, 1963. I’m older now than John F. Kennedy was on that day, but it remains, in many ways, the fulcrum on which my life pivots.

It’s hard for younger people to understand—awkward, out of balance, that my life should be bisected so unevenly: half a dozen years for Act I, half a century and counting for Act II. But my generation understands.

So, I imagine, would those who were children on June 28, 1914, when another public figure, riding in an open car with his wife, was shot by an assassin. For those children, the world before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was slain was one thing. The world that came after, another one entirely.

And so it is with us.

I can’t be objective about JFK, either as a man or a public figure. I’ve tried. I’ve studied his life and presidency; he seems to me to have been an ambitious, rather callow young man to whom high office added stature and gravitas. He rose to the demands of the job. But this is not an uncommon phenomenon. It is, among others, Lincoln’s story, too, and Churchill’s.

And anyway, that’s not what sears him into my DNA…what has left him indelibly etched on our culture. What he represented—especially as the first of a generation of leaders for whom the Second World War was history, not biography—was the triumph of order, of chronology…of a narrative of progress and achievement. His death—a random, senseless, meaningless act—not only ended that narrative; it rewound and erased it. What followed was cynicism, and anxiety, and uncertainty.

On November 21, 1963, I spent my last day in a different world. Since November 23, 1963, I’ve lived in this one.

But I still remember. And if I live long enough for my aged mind to fragment and fall apart, that will be the last bit to cohere.


Monday, November 4, 2013

Hommages à Alfred


My last two novels, The Sugarman Bootlegs and Baby, have been rebranded as part of "Hommages à Alfred," which I describe thusly: 

Hommages à Alfred is a series of novels inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, incorporating mystery, menace, murder, and mordant wit.

A third entry, Vamoose, will be published in 2014.

This is my tip of the hat to a towering figure in my cultural and creative development...a genius whose utterly singular aesthetic continues to exert a deliciously unhealthy influence over my own.

Both The Sugarman Bootlegs and Baby's new editions are available as trade paperbacks and as ebooks for Kindle and Nook. And the ebook versions are just $2.99.





Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Avery Overman's Adventures In Underbed

After my mom died in 2009, I—being a writer—decided to take solace in writing. I gave myself over to my pen; just got out of the way, and let whatever wanted to happen, happen.

And what happened surprised me: a very short novella directly inspired by the iconic tales from my youth—Peter Pan, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz—but shot through with the urgency of a mother's love.


An even more unexpected consequence was that it ended up being a hymn to fatherhood as well; not to mention a kind of valedictory love letter to the vast landscape of juvenile genre fiction that I was, belatedly, leaving behind me.

In short, a very strange little piece of fiction. I was advised that it was basically unsaleable. But it means a lot to me, so I've made it available as an unofficial Kindle single for just 99¢.

If you check it out, let me know what you think. I'd love to know your reactions.