A member of my writer’s group has a novel coming out from St. Martin’s Press, and I’m taking this post to hawk his novel and try to convince you of what a swell fella he is. What’s that you say? You didn’t come here for a commercial? It’s not fair?
Well, then get out of here. I don’t need you; I don’t care. Go watch Ask A Ninja. Those of you with the good sense to stick around will be receiving a coupon in the mail for a free Dilly bar from the Dairy Queen.
Now then. James Bernard Frost lives in Portland. He just bought a dandy little house that he’s done a fine job dolling up, he has a gorgeous wife and daughter, he is — for the most part, I understand — a faithful vegan, and he has a cute little dog what’s pretty well behaved and doesn’t jump up on in his couch or yip-yip-yip-yip around too much when you’re just trying to drink your beer and be as interesting and polite a dinner guest as you can manage. I like that. I like people who keep their little dogs from sniffing at the crotches of their dinner guests, or yip-yip-yip-yiping at them and giving them a headache. I think it’s a sign of fortitude and moral uprightness. This country could use more folks like Jim.
After one of our semi-weekly meetings, Jim, myself, David Rochester and a few of the other members were standing around in the street, talking about how best to decide when a person ought to give up their lofty literary aspirations and just write some aliens into their story; talking about how you can replace eggs in a cake recipe with two tablespoons of good applesauce per egg (applesauce, how about that!); talking about when to stop introducing new characters and problems into a story and start trying to clean up the mess you already made.
In short, we were bullshitting. Chances are good that yours truly was saying something arrogant and not-too-complimentary about the story written by whichever member wasn’t standing right there.
Chances are just as good that Jim was aghast and trying to change the subject and at the same time doing me the kindness of not pointing out the fact that halfway through my story I’d changed the name of the main character from Raoul to Gordo for no apparent reason. It was right about that point, all of us standing in the street following a two-plus-hour meeting, that I realized that good Mr. Frost was wearing a Billy Bragg t-shirt.
Now, if you know anything about me, and you might, you’d think that there’d have to be something pretty danged interesting coming out of ol’ Jim’s mouth if a whole meeting went by and I didn’t notice he was wearing a Billy Bragg t-shirt. And you’d be right, too. Jim’s a sage imp, and a damned fine writer to boot. He comes around Malaise every once in a while; goes by bigdumbjim. But he’s not actually dumb, or really very big — which is strange. I’ll have to ask him about that next time I see him.
The forthcoming novel is called World Leader Pretend and it’s being printed, I might add, in a beautiful, durable, and affordable trade paperback format. Having read an advance copy myself I can offer my sincere and hearty recommendation and the suggestion that you order yourself up a copy of World Leader Pretend here.
If you order it through one of the above links, it won’t cost you a thin red cent more, but, through the wonders of marketing in the modern age, Jim will get a little extra pocket-change out of the deal. Heck, I just can’t think of anyone who better deserves to jingle when they walk.
UPDATE: See also my review in this post.
Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.
It’s no wonder you were obliged to sign up for a thing-a-ma-brain, inaccurate as your memory is. That conversation involved substituting applesauce for aliens in a story, which cuts fat out of the plot although it slightly increases cooking time. Tsk, tsk. Now go take your manuscript out of the oven.
I was, uh, jus’ tryin’ to turn the heat up on my protagonist.
…you won’t take that one?
Okay, uh, I was trying to write a little potboiler–no, wait, that happens on the top of the stove. Uh, gimme a second…
Let’s see. The plot is a turkey, and the characters are stuffi–no, scratch that, the characters are the turkeys and…
Oh, to hell with it. Where’s the Weetabix?
i never knew how far a well-behaved dog could get you in someone’s estimation. i guess the ground-up xanex in the doggie bowl was a good idea after all.
[...] Apropos of my earlier post. World Leader Pretend is a novel populated by people that are funny and clever and tragic. Frost has created a world fueled by hopefulness and misery, a world where continents seem to be endlessly torn apart and thrust back together. Some of the characters in this novel hand out trust as if it was free pull tokens for a seedy casino; some of them aren’t even sure the sun will ever come up again. The stakes are high, in the game and in the world. Not everyone can win. Some people are going to lose everything they have—some are going to earn back something that they lost. Frost tells the story with a crisp modern style, and he has a way of using a phrase the way another writer might use a world that I loved. An engrossing, compelling read. [...]