Release Day of Fall in One Day
Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 09:23AM Annnnnnnd we have lift off.
May 16th has been a date in my head for a long time... this bird has flown, Houston we have a novel, release the hounds... I dunno pick a cliché.
Wait, I know the best one: WOOFREAKINHOO! Yeah, that fits.
In a way, it feels like the book has already been out there. I've had many great advance reviews, for which I am deeply grateful for. As well, the book has been in a soft launch mode at the independent bookstore where the launch will be happening on May 25th (McNally Robinson - one of the best independent booksellers anywhere... yes. Any. Where!)
Thank yous will be forthcoming and repeating to all those that helped this book get legs (wheels? Fins?) But for now, I will just enjoy the moment.
Perfect timed is a review an interview that I gave to book blogger extradorinaire Betsy Kipnis. The review contains one of the best synops of the book that I've read (Betsy, can you write my query letters from now on?)
She also asked me to take part in an interview, and asked some great questions.
Here is the start of the interview - if you want to read the rest, hop over to bookisshh.com - and do read her other reviews, she is really quite great.
And oh yeah, go to one of these places to pick up a copy:
McNally Robinson (Winnipeg)
As synchronicity would have it, I posted a shorthand review which Craig read and sent me a DM via Instagram. Since the interview we have fun repartee and I’m looking forward to one of his upcoming novels. Let’s learn a little bit about Craig Terlson.
Betsy: Something I’ve realized about your book is that as it’s shelved into my mind, relevance keeps pulling it off for further consideration. Pretty cool effect you’ve got going there. So what made you write this book?
Craig: Several ideas floated around for a number of years, and these ideas kept popping up in the short stories I was wrting at the time. At some point, the memory of Watergate, and what it meant in history, intertwined with the idea of family secrets and somehow the LSD therapies conducted in my home city in the 1950s was thrown into the mix.
Betsy: There’s a lot of boy types in various states of development in your story. How did you model these characters?
Craig: Any writer that tells you their characters don’t have roots in their own beginnings is lying (or has a much better imagination than me). So sure, these characters were familiar to me at first-but all of them go through what I call the “fiction filter” and they become their own peop;le. My memory of that era is pretty strong, as it was significant for me. One of the challenges was to not just take a fifteen year old from our era and plunk them into 1973, Teenagers are very different now, both culturally, access to information and in some ways maturity wise.
Betsy: During your story you float the idea of subversion for your readers? What is it you’d like them to question or challenge?
Craig: This is a complex question, and does get at the heart of the novel. There are times when we wonder if we are getting the whole picture of something-we wonder what is underneath, what is hidden? An extreme example of this would be conspiracy theorists, but all of us experience it on different levels. Is that politician telling us the truth? What are drug companies really up to? What are my parents doing when I’m asleep? Can that legal or religious authority be trusted? It’s true that too much focus on subversion can create paranoia, and if you watch movies from the 70s (a prime influence for the novel), that subversion and paranoia is everywhere. For me, it shows up in a lot of places, even say, in the lyrics of Steely Dan.
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