Correction Line - redux

I have decided to put my novel Correction Line up for a free promotion again - well, actually I decided this about a month ago.

It is still part of the KDP select plan, so I thought I'd do it one last time. I wrote about what happened last time (How did that free thing go), and honestly, I have no idea how this one will go. I've learned in the last few months a lot about Amazon, notably its pesky algorithms (and how they have changed). But ultimately, I am simply looking to introduce more readers to the work. If you have been following along with Bent Highway, you will see some similarities in Correction Line - though, no time travel. And quite a different sort of road.

Correction Line has attracted some very interesting reviews since its release in July. I think a writer often waits to hear in the reviews not just if the reader like it, but who they thought it sounded like. I am always curious to see if my influences, without being named, show up in the reader's minds. As an illustrator I know that style does not come out of nothing - sorry for the double negative - maybe better to quote Picasso about art. "Amateurs borrow, Professionals steal." I am never sure if he actually said that, but he should have.

Various reviews of the book have mentioned Marquez (yep, most definitely an influence) and Elmore Leonard (again, yep. Though I haven't read a lot of his work.) then James Lee Burke shows up, which is an influence after the fact. Correction Line was almost finished (for the first time) long before I got into Burke, notably Black Cherry Blues. Clive Barker is mentioned, though I have never read a book of his, and Philip K. Dick - who I loved as a teen, but mostly grew out of by the time I began to write. That being said, I can certainly feel Dick's influence in Bent Highway.

If you read the blog, you know how I feel about Richard Ford, and for me, he is one of the strongest influences on my writing - though, maybe only I see that. There are even certain scenes in the book when I am channelling some Don DeLillo, another of my all-time favorites.

Cross-genre much?

Yes.

I think this range of styles, okay, stew-pot full of style creates an interesting literary soup (or as one reviews said, a literary smorg.) This can be off-putting for the reader, I accept that. It was off-putting for some of the Big 6 Publishers that read it. "Is this a literary, mystery, or slipstream book?"

Yes.

They say you should write the kind of book you like to read. And I did. It may be why I love the movies of Quentin Tarantino so much - he crammed everything he loved about the movies into Pulp Fiction. 

And this post would be remiss if I didn't mention Joe R. Lansdale. I also came to his work after the first draft of Correction Line was finished. This was a quite a few years ago. And yes, I have been working on this book a long time. Someone was reading some of my work and said, hey, you kinda write like Lansdale. Um... Who?

Many books later, I discovered who. And I saw the resemblance - even in two of my characters having some similarities with Hap and Leonard, though only a glancing one. Now Joe writes about East Texas, and my fiction happens in a much colder and flatter locale - the Canadian Prairies. Though, it could be anywhere. If you haven't read any Lansdale, I suggest you start with Hap and Leonard (Rumble Tumble or Two-Bear Mambo are wonderful), and make your way to The Bottoms, still my favorite. Along the way there are other gems like Sunset and Sawdust and Lost Echoes. Just go and get one. You'll see what I mean.

I have written a lot of stories, and one other full length novel since Correction Line. I believe the style is being honed, and becoming more its own. Not to say that Correction Line isn't unique.

As Kay Sexton said in her review,

"...Craig Terlson’s Correction Line fell neatly into the basket of uncatogorisable but good fiction: it’s inclined to the noir end of the spectrum but balances its deadpan violence and lowlife characters with a skewed surrealist palette of unlikely but linked events, and unlovely but compelling individuals."

Kay goes onto say,

"It’s road trip meets flashback, with a touch of paranoid conspiracy and more than a touch of dark dystopian fantasy."

Hmmm, maybe more Philip K. than I thought.

It can be a challenging book - I know that. And like any book, it is not for everyone. But I sure had a helluva lot of fun writing it over the years. And I have had Roy, Lucy, Lawrence, Curtis and Dave in my head for at least a decade. I'd love to put them in your head.

This weekend (Friday, Oct. 12, and Sat. Oct. 13) Correction Line is free at Amazon.

I hope you pick it up. 

(A bonus this time: I fixed a lot of the pesky indentation problems from the first edition)

Last word to Kay,

"Sometimes brutal, often demanding and always complex, this novel will repay the reader who likes their assumptions challenged and is happy to walk away from a book with minor questions unanswered but the big ones definitely dealt with! It’s likely to satisfy those who enjoy Hammet and/or Philip K Dick and who like their fiction very noir indeed."

Kay Sexton's Full Review

Joe R. Lansdale Site