Photo by John Geiger

Richard Thomas is a busy man.  He’s a husband and father of twins.  He’s a graphic designer.  He helps moderate a writing workshop at The Cult, one of the most popular author websites in the world.  He’s helped edit zines and magazines alike.  He’s pursuing his MFA in Fiction.  He’s part of a group of up-and-coming writers who each year help each other through the hardships of writing a novel.  And yeah, he’s also a writer whose debut novel, a neo-noir thriller called Transubstantiate, was published in July 2010, the flagship novel of the upstart independent press Otherworld Publications.  High on life and hell-bent on sharing in the revelry of being part of a new movement of fresh voices in the literary world, Richard stopped by Oxyfication to share a little bit about himself, how his debut novel Transubstantiate came to be, and what it’s like when one of your literary heroes tells you that your writing reminds them of their literary heroes.

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Take us to the beginning, and through the years leading up to Transubstantiate.  When did you start writing?  When did writing become something more, that you wanted to pursue professionally?

I’ve always loved reading, since the 6th grade, when I won a contest for most books read (boys). I wrote a lot of papers in high school, but not any fiction, didn’t really have room in my schedule, college prep. It wasn’t until college, and really, my junior and senior years when I took a fantasy and science fiction class with Dr. Edgar Chapman, and we watched Blade Runner, that I started thinking about the possibilities. I took several creative writing classes, some independent studies that involved writing, and I got really excited about writing. My first story that I published was at Bradley University, in the literary journal, Broadside.

After I graduated and moved to Chicago, I worked at a country club up in Glencoe (there are some stories there for sure) and eventually moved downtown. I lived at 666 N. Dearborn, and again, there were some wild stories there. I remember typing away on my old Remington Quiet-Riter (that’s a typewriter) and sending out stories. It was so slow and painful, typing, copying, mailing. It was devastating. I got involved with other things – having fun, living the bohemian lifestyle, chasing girls, and kind of gave up on writing for a long time. I got sucked into the world of advertising, where I’ve been for 15 years. Sure, I was the fiction and poetry curator at Around the Coyote, a festival in Wicker Park, years later, and I even wrote some non-fiction for some indie magazines (Subnation and 3rdWord) but I didn’t have the focus, the desire.

It wasn’t until much later, about four years ago, that I was reborn at the Cult, studying with Craig Clevenger, Monica Drake, and Max Barry, and I felt like I had any talent, and finally started to believe in myself. Better late than never, right? This got me to the place where I felt like I should pursue an MFA (that’s real money, folks) and my wife got behind me, saw that I was serious, and I started to get work published, started to break through.

The only thing I can say is that for years I’ve been in advertising, and I’ve had success, won awards, landed multi-million dollar accounts, but it’s never felt right, and I’ve always hit a ceiling and stopped. The minute I started pushing in a different direction, towards writing, it felt right, I had some positive experiences, I started to break through, and that’s when I knew that I was doing the right thing.

Every book starts somewhere.  An idea.  A sentence.  What is the genesis of Transubstantiate?  Did you always plan on it being a book, or did it naturally evolve into one?

Well, it all started with the Max Barry intensive at The Cult.  We were given the assignment to write four introductions to four novels that we’d always wanted to write.  Anything at all.  So, I think I did a horror intro, science-fiction, neo-noir, and literary.  I wanted to title each of the sections with a word that was really unique and that I’d never heard before.  Transubstantiate was one of those words, vainglorious was another.  I poured over the internet, lists of unique words, all kinds of stuff.  That was how I came across transubstantiate.

The intensive was to write a novel, so starting with those four openings, I decided to expand the cast of Transubstantiate to seven. I’m not sure how I got to seven. I think early on (I was just looking at some old notes) I played with the idea of the seven deadly sins. So while those four openings turned into Jacob (literary), X (horror), Jimmy (SF), and Gordon (neo-noir), I added in Marcy, Roland and Assigned later. If you look at the seven characters, you can kind of see how they match up with those sins. Jacob was sloth, Marcy was lust, etc.

Though at times rooted in the fantastical and based in the future, Transubstantiate is very real in the dark side of reality sense of the word: people under surveillance, population control experiments, etc.  You’ve classified the novel as neo-noir, which is a sort of all-encompassing genre/movement, but would you say that there is also a social science fiction element to it?

For sure. I wish I could write more SF, I just feel like I’m not smart enough to write true SF, that it’d have to be soft SF. My math skills, science, well, they’re not my strengths. Although, I am toying with the idea of writing something “steampunkish”. I’m fascinated by the idea of moving so far into the future that we have all of this technology that we (in 2010) see as the “future” (such as ray guns, teleportation, time travel, etc.) and then everything fails. We shut down everything, it collapses, no more tv, internet, flying cars etc. And we regress to the survival mode of hundreds of years ago – fire, water, air, wheels, steam, gears, etc. I loved King’s Dark Tower series, and I’m reading some steampunk – China Mieville, Jeff VanderMeer, Cherie Priest, etc. I’ve always been drawn to SF, grew up reading Bradbury and Heinlein, but I’m still learning about it. I love Vonnegut too. So those guys are a bit of an influence, and that comes through in Transubstantiate. I try not to be too preachy.

Having seven different narrators is a daunting task both on the writer and potentially the reader, having to keep track of what everyone’s doing/saying/etc.  How difficult was that for you, how did you keep track of everyone, and did you ever have any apprehension about going that route?

It was tough. And I don’t plot either. So it was a matter of doing a couple of things to keep me in line.

First, I wrote every day for about an hour at work. I closed the door, wolfed down a sandwich, and then wrote. Each day it was a different character. Monday was Jacob, Tuesday was Marcy, etc. I’d only write maybe 500-700 words. Over time those expanded a bit.

But I’d think about the characters. While I was working, or on my commute to work, whatever that day was, I’d be thinking “Okay, Jacob, he’s in the bookstore, he’s waiting for the new arrival, and he has a secret. What happens next?” By the time I got to work, and to my lunch hour, I was ready to go. It just spilled out.

You may notice that for a long time I keep the characters apart, maybe four chapters, I think. I didn’t have a problem writing from the different POVs, in my head I could hear their voices, but I wasn’t sure how to handle it when they got together. I didn’t want to have two perspectives on the same situation, so most of the time it was a time-baton, where the scene gets handed off from one character to another. For example, early on, Marcy is going to see X, to have sex. I have it from X’s POV first, and I leave it about where she enters the gate of his compound. I pick it up with her, on her way, and it goes from the gate to the house and the sex.

For sure it was intimidating. And from most of the reactions I’ve gotten, I did a good enough job. But I’ll always worry that I didn’t do enough. Should I have given Jimmy more of an accent? Should I have made Gordon’s voice more fragmented?

And you’ll also see that every three chapters I do something as well. So not only do I have seven POVs, but Chapter Three is a flashback. Chapter Six starts out THIRD PERSON (where the previous entries are all 1st person) everyone in one place, then does a flashforward. Chapter Nine is all correspondence – letters, postcards, e-mails. Chapter Twelve is everyone in one room.

Maybe I’m insane, I’m not sure. I took some risks for sure, but looking back I can’t say that this could have been anything else. The only other thought I ever had was to really expand this, make it almost twice as long, but in the end I didn’t want that. And, there’s always a possibility of a sequel.

It’s interesting that you said you didn’t want to have two perspectives on the same situation because the part where all of the characters come together and find out about their new opportunity that’s exactly what you’re doing.  Did you think this scene was necessary for the reader so they’d know where these people came from, how they got together, or was more the natural progression of things for these characters?

I think you’re talking about chapter twelve, where they’re all in the same room together (and I don’t want to spoil anything here) about to be sent out to their new lives. Yes, in that scene, I did have all seven perspectives on the same place and time. BUT…I hand that baton off, from one person to the next, moving forward in time, no overlap, really. AND it’s much later in the book, chapter twelve, so by then, I had a little more confidence in what I was doing. Now, if you’re talking about chapter SIX, where they are all tied to the posts around the fire, well…it was the plot, I think. I felt like I had to get them together so they could understand what was going on. We kind of figured it out together, what was happening. As they are talking to each other, and not everyone is happy to be there, or to see each other, I was figuring out what was happening. And again, it’s six chapters in, so I was just starting to get a feel, some confidence, and knew that I was going to do a flash-forward there.

You spoke a lot in other interviews about the influence of the writing intensives that you took over at The Cult; the kind words you received from Craig Clevenger, the support you got from Stephen Graham Jones, and so on.  Did you ever find studying with some of your literary heroes a daunting task, or perhaps, and especially with Transubstantiate, did it maybe help give you the confidence one needs to actually write a novel?

You don’t often get a chance to connect with an artist that you love and respect. How often does a painter or musician or writer get to talk to somebody that they look up to, somebody they have studied and enjoyed? It doesn’t happen very often. Not every author that has taught at the Cult has been somebody I’ve read, but certainly Craig and Monica are two people I’ve read. Max, I was familiar with his work, but wanted to work with him because he’s successful, and it was the first novel intensive I saw at the Cult. I learned a lot from Max, more than I thought I would, since our styles are so different.

I was very nervous to work with Craig. I had a feeling that he’d be nice, that he wouldn’t be cruel in his criticism, but he is nothing if not sincere. He doesn’t blow smoke, he finds something in your work that is WORKING and he tries to focus on your strengths, while showing you where you can improve. At least that was my experience with him. The first story I sent in, I was sick to my stomach. When he compared some of it to one of HIS idols, Steve Erickson, I was blown away. He’s very smart, but he finds a way to bring it down to a level where you can digest it. He’s brilliant, really. I hope he keeps publishing, and more often, as I can’t wait to read more of his work.

Monica, she’s such a nice person. She has gone out of her way to help me, in the intensive, and in the real world, at AWP and other places. She really helped me to get over my fears, to treat myself as an actual writer. I think I’ve published every story I wrote in her intensive. She gets the best out of you.

Max got me over the paralyzing fear of trying to write a novel. He got me to write with a maximum word count per day instead of a minimum, and that reverse psychology really worked for me. He got me to see the story only as far as the headlights of the car would allow. I don’t think I could have written Transubstantiate without his advice, his support, and his confidence.

Later, I came back to the intensives for a fourth one, the SECOND Clevenger intensive. That was where I think I really started to write well. I’d learned so much in the process. I wasn’t scared of Craig any more, I considered him a peer, a friend, and when he pushed me to start sending out my story “Stillness” saying it was ready, perfect, I took a deep breath and got over my fears. That story got rejected a good dozen times, but I was aiming at the top, Clarkesworld, F&SF, only the best places. When it got accepted at Cemetery Dance for their anthology Shivers VI (out in September 2010) I was thrilled. Shocked, but thrilled. That’s a 1% acceptance market. Craig had been right. And because of people like him, and Monica, and Max, and so many others, at the Cult, the Velvet, and Write Club, I had the confidence to push myself. I’ve been lucky.

Stephen has also been so very cool. I’ve never had the opportunity to study with him, I missed that intensive, as well as Baer’s, but he’s been very supportive, gave me a blurb (as did Craig), and every time I’ve met him, at various AWPs he’s been so very generous. He’s hilarious too. Not to mention one of the most talented, and prolific, writers I know. He’s really what I’d like to become. He writes literary, as well as genre, has no problem defending people like Stephen King, he writes and publishes all the time, teaches, does panels, and never apologizes. Some day I’d like to be where he is. I don’t know if it’ll happen, but he’s really an inspiration to me.

Write Club also seems to have had a major influence in the writing and editing of Transubstantiate.  How important do you think having a collective of like-minded contemporaries was to the process, and how do you think it helped shape the final product?

Write Club has been a huge influence on me. Without this support group, I don’t think I could have written Transubstantiate. I won’t start naming names, because I’m sure I’d leave people out, but they know who they are. It’s the same core group of writers that shows up at the Cult, the Velvet, GoodReads, Facebook, etc. and they’re all so talented, so giving. I can’t stress how important it is to have a support network like this. These people, they tell me how it is. They don’t pull punches. We fight over scenes, over endings, word choices. They keep me on my toes. My work is much better because of them. These are the men and women that take the time to read my work, to put 100% of their mind, and heart, and soul, into making me better, into telling me when I’m on my game, helping me to fix what isn’t working, and when I get work out there, they are the first to say congratulations, to pimp me to their friends, to retweet, and post on FB, write up reviews, give me 4-5 stars at Amazon or GoodReads, etc. And not because they feel they have to, but because that’s honestly how they feel. Again, I’m lucky. And not to mention that these guys are very talented, and really deserve to be published and put out there more. I know that they’ll all succeed as well. I’m so happy to see them all getting book deals and putting their stories out there.

Right now I’m workshopping Disintegration, my next book. It’s a neo-noir, transgressive thriller. I think it’s my best work to date. But we’re fighting over the ending, they’re challenging me on scenes, on choices I’ve made. Not to be jerks, not to push their own agendas, but to help me to make this the best it can be. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed. It’d be easy to be defensive, to say “Screw you, I know what I’m doing,” but these guys are smart, they speak from their hearts, from experience. In the end, I have to write my story, I have to stay true to my vision, but if they can help me to make it better, more honest, more true, then I do it, I make those changes, I pump it up, I push myself. And to be honest? If I was alone, I probably wouldn’t do that.

You’ve listed some influences, from Stephen King, to Chuck Palahniuk, to LOST.  In Transubstantiate the main characters are on an island, survivors of a great plague, and Jacob, one of the characters who works in a bookstore is giving one of his customers Choke to read.  Thematically everything works, but are these sort of vehicles strictly for helping to advance the story, or were you having a little fun, paying homage with little nuggets, while at the same time maybe making a connection with the readers who have like interests/influences as you?

I was having a little fun. And paid homage to some of my influences. I do think that fans of my work will also, most likely, have read similar works, and if not, then maybe they’ll pick them up. You’ll notice I also take a cheap shot at Dean Koontz, somebody I read for a long time, an author I really enjoyed in my youth (Whispers, Phantoms) but kind of failed me in his recent books, many disappointing books over the last ten years (aside from the Odd Thomas books) so much so that I’ve stopped reading him.

There are also a lot of “Easter Eggs” buried in the book. I had a lot of throw away names, and instead of just grabbing a name out of the air, I decided to use the names of people I know, other writers, friends from the Cult, Velvet, Write Club, etc.

The Dean Koontz blast was loud and clear.  In my opinion writing should have more writer-on-writer, prose-on-bros crime, ala rap battles.  If you were going to go after someone–aside from Koontz–who would you set your sights on?

Oh boy. I hate to slam anyone, because I know how hard it is to be successful as a writer, so really, Koontz is a brilliant guy in some way, he’s a millionaire for sure. I’ve never been a fan of Pynchon. There are a lot of literary writers and critics that I wish would just get off their high horses and relax, admit they enjoy genre work, and stop criticizing people like Stephen King. I’ve seen SGJ do several panels, and he’s always defending King. He’s the man. I wish I could be meaner, but really, Koontz is probably one of the few authors that I’ve read a lot of, and over time, has gotten worse, and really let me down. I took that personally. I’ve read Dan Brown. I’ve read worse. Dan Brown has a place. If they’re really bad, I’ve probably never picked them up. If they’re really good, then they’ve never let me down.

To what you said about someone like Stephen King not getting respect among critics, he’ll never have a shortage of readers.  In a perfect world one would like to have commercial success and praise from critics, but it rarely seems to work that way.  With Transubstantiate and beyond, what’s more important to you as a writer?

Wow, tough question. If I had commercial success, I could live and work as a writer, which would be fantastic. But if I felt like I was writing to the lowest common denominator, I wouldn’t be writing with my heart, my visions. If I had some sort of critical success, but never made any money, and could never be a writer full-time, well, that would be somewhat disappointing too. I’ve thought about it. In this era of mass market work, having to write towards an audience, having to make a story marketable, it does seem that a lot of publishers want to take out everything that makes a story unique, a voice different. They don’t want it to be different, they want it the same, they want a proven story, to a proven market. Ideally, I’d like to write work that is interesting, critically successful (whatever that means, since a lot of critics are closed-minded, of a literary bent ONLY) and also something the masses can enjoy. I would like to think that I write on two levels: a story that can be read, understood, something fast and exciting AND something that has layers, imagery, depth, a second and third layer that can give you more than just the story, but things to think about, to contemplate after it’s all over. I hope that Transubstantiate stays with people. I don’t want to be the literary equivalent of fast food. While some have called King that, I don’t think he is at all.

If Transubstatiate had a corresponding “Booktrack” that readers would listen to to enhance the experience what songs/artists would be on it?

The one album that I listened to more than anything else while writing it was IN RAINBOWS by Radiohead. It’s got a lot going on – fast paced songs, slow moody tunes, a bit of the surreal there. That’s a good one to play with it. It’ll seep into the background, and then, you’ll hear a couple words, and it’ll all make sense, connect. Put it on. REBOOT.

I read  that Transubstantiate is the third book you’ve written.  What happened with the first two?  And what did writing them help with the writing of Transubstantiate?

Oh, man. I was hoping it would be ten or twenty years before I got this question.

The first book is called Remembering and it’s terrible. I workshopped it in my first Write Club, and, wow, it was bad. I have to thank Bret Fowler, a guy I’ve gotten to know at WC and the Cult, and just met for the first time here in Chicago recently, we did a reading together in Wicker Park a couple weeks ago. He really helped me to understand the difference between show and tell. I also realized that this first book was really preachy, just terrible. It was about a guy who gets all of the “answers” to the questions that haunt us all, directly from GOD. Bad book, it’ll never see the light of day. BUT I did learn a lot, what NOT to do, how hard it is to write a novel. Every writer has to write a first book, and most of them are horrible, should be thrown away. You get to say all of the things you want to say, get all of your “messages” out there, and then, throw it away. Seriously.

The second book is called The Fool, and it’s a memoir. Who knows, maybe some day it’ll happen. I actually got an offer on it many years ago, but it all fell apart. Basically, I had a lot of adventures when I was young – sex and drugs and rock n’ roll, you know. And I had all of these stories about people dying at my feet, acid trips and hallucinations, leaving my body, wild underground sex clubs. There were a good twelve stories that I found myself telling people over the years. I’m sure my wife, Lisa, would be happy if this never saw the light of day. Who knows. Maybe when I’m rich and famous I’ll get the right offer.

So, technically, yes, Transubstantiate is my third book. Disintegration will be my fourth. But I really consider Transubstantiate my first.

If nothing else, I learned how hard it was to write a novel, how long it takes to write 60, 70, 80 thousand words. It’s a big commitment. You should probably write short stories for awhile first, learn to master plot, character, setting, etc. all of the basics over a shorter span first. I don’t think I could have done anything but fail with that first book. It was way too soon, I was wasn’t ready. So, now, I know what it takes. I hope to keep writing, more novels and short stories. I’ve gotten over my initial fear, and hopefully I’ll keep learning and growing and getting better at this.

What would you say has been–or was–the hardest part in the experience of writing and publishing Transubstantiate?

Oh man. The hardest thing is believing in yourself. It’s the whole journey – believing in your idea, having the faith and courage to even TRY to write it. Then writing it. Then editing it for a year. Sending it out, believing it’s a great story, that you have a place in the world and are worthy. Selling your story to the masses, once you have a press, fighting for everything – the cover, the words, the events, the things you believe in, your story. The hardest part of writing and publishing is believing that you have something to share, that it is worth their time, their money, these hours, days, weeks of their lives. It’s hard. But I do believe in my words. Now. In my short stories, in Transubstantiate, and in the next one, Disintegration. I question a lot of it, so many words, sentences, scenes, chapters. I lose faith every day, and then fight to regain it. And when somebody takes the time to pop up on Facebook or send me an e-mail or writes up a fantastic review, well, I get a little bit of energy back, a bit of faith, and I keep going. Somebody just popped up on Facebook today, IM’d me real fast, just said, LOVING YOUR BOOK, and then disappeared. A guy in the UK. That’s awesome.

Transubstantiate is the first release from the upstart press Otherworld Publications.  Do you feel a lot of pressure having the flagship book on that press, and how are you measuring success for the book?  Is it just getting published, and everything else is a bonus? Is it overall book sales? Is it something else all together?

Sure, a lot of pressure. But, I can only do so much. I put it out there, do everything I can, and hope that OWP will do everything they can. We make mistakes, and hopefully learn from them. It’s a stepping stone, we’re all learning. I know that the people that are following me will benefit from the lessons that I’ve learned. And that OWP has learned. The printing process, the PR, the timelines, all of that, I know others will learn and benefit from what we’re going through right now. And whether we sell 50 or 5,000 copies, the bottom line is that I tried to put out the best book I could, and I hope that it will be a great read for everyone who comes in contact with it, entertaining, and maybe it’ll leave a mark, a tiny echo, some sort of lingering effect.

Success? Sales is one thing, sure. I’d hoped to sell 5,000 copies, but now I’d probably be happy with 1.000. Who knows. We’ve been late on a lot of things, and that has effected everything. But, as somebody said to me, it’s not just the release date, it’s the whole year that comes after it. So, ask me in a year how I feel about it all. I know that I’m expanding my audience, and that total strangers from all over the world are reading my book, and enjoying it. And that makes me happy. And my peers, fellow authors, they’ve reacted really well, all positive so far, so that’s a great feeling too.

I see this as a stepping stone, a process, someplace to start. I hope to do more with this book, maybe sell foreign rights, film rights, that kind of stuff. I have short stories coming out soon, “Stillness” will be in the Cemetery Dance collection Shivers VI any week now, and they often win a Bram Stoker award for this anthology. I have a story, “Victimized” in Murky Depths in early 2011, a graphic format magazine, and I’m really excited about that too. These are two of my favorite stories, possibly my best. It’s all connected. My novel, getting my MFA, my short stories, editing and designing for Colored Chalk and Sideshow Fables, all of it. It’s connected. I’ve been humbled by the whole process, but am really excited about how Transubstantiate has grown and gotten out there and gotten attention. Every time I get a note from somebody on Facebook or GoodReads or the Velvet of the Cult saying they really loved the book, that makes me happy. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about.

In promoting Transubstantiate, you’ve embraced the grass roots approach necessary for upstart artists in the 21st century, using all of the popular social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, etc.) to help spread the word.  Have you found it’s helped in finding an audience, or maybe even creating one?

For sure, definitely. Facebook, my friends have grown to over 4000. The Facebook group for Transubstantiate is over 1200. And lots of people in the group have gone out and bought copies, people all over the world – Germany, Australia, the UK, all over the US. It’s very cool. Same with Goodreads.com, we got over 1000 people to enter the contest (gave away five copies), and 200 selected the book as “to-read”, and right now, eight people are reading it over there. So that’s pretty exciting. I know that all of these resources have helped, the forums I’m at, the Cult, the Velvet, my blogs, Twitter, all of that. I know that I’ve not only made new fans, but have turned friends into fans as well, have put my words in the hands of people who knew me, or knew of me, but never read my work. It’s contagious, it just keeps growing and spreading, like a virus. I mean, like a flower. I know that all of these resources have certainly helped me, a first time author, and my press, as well.

You just recently experienced your first book signing.  First, what was that like, and second, what has been the most surreal thing so far about the whole experience of having your first book published?

The book signing at GENCON in Indy was pretty cool. I’ve been to AWP three times now, and to other conventions, big trade shows, but GENCON was wild. Not as cool as COMIC-CON, I don’t think, but there were stormtroopers, ghostbusters, Final Fantasy chicks, various anime in stages of undress, fur bikinis, lots of strange things. Our table was in Author Alley, just a little area in the back. So, if people made it us, they were probably looking for books, and were pretty serious. Otherwise, it was a wrong turn, and they kept going, looking for more half-naked girls or giant 10-sided dice.

I was kind of excited to see a little sign with my picture, Richard Thomas signing from 12-4. And a stack of my books, both the signed/limited and the paperbacks. I got to talk to a lot of people. Most of the books were fantasy, so the book covers were dragons and pixies and stuff like that. We stood out, more neo-noir, crime, mystery, some SF. I got asked a lot of great questions – how long did it take, what was my book about, what was neo-noir (or speculative). I sold three signed/limited and I was pretty excited. I kept thinking “I can’t believe this guy is dropping $40 on my book.” Even with all of the extras (cd with 5 short stories, extra bonus chapter, extended interview). It was kind of touching, really, that they were willing to take a chance, willing to come back later to get the book signed because I wasn’t there yet (had some trouble getting my ID, go figure). We sold a lot of paperbacks over four days too. It was a lot of fun. Nobody can really talk about my book like I can, explain the genre, the themes, the plot, or answer questions.

The most surreal thing was probably at AWP Denver. A guy came up to me and asked me if I was Richard Thomas. If I was the guy who wrote Transubstantiate. I was shocked. He was a really smart guy, ran a panel, and was actually really well read. I don’t know if he knew what I looked like, or read my name tag, or what, but I talked to him and it was really cool. I shook his hand, and kind of gave him a hug too. Probably slipped him some tongue, I was so excited. It was surreal. My first fan. Made my day.

Talk a bit about Disintegration.  You say you’re in the process of working out the ending but take us to its beginning.  What’s it about?  Does it relate at all to Transubstantiate or are you going somewhere new? How soon before we get to read it?

Thanks for asking. Disintegration is similar to Transubstantiate in the sense that both are neo-noir (new-black) fiction. They both are thrillers, although I think Transubstantiate is faster, where Disintegration is slower, more introspective. The other difference is that I see Transubstantiate being speculative where Disintegration is transgressive. I put these labels on my books simply because it helps me to keep the voices straight, the tone. Transubstantiate has a bit of the horrific, the fantastic. Disintegration focuses on the anarchy of one man, the rebellion, man vs. society, man vs. himself.

We’ve been talking a bit about what makes a novel “noir” over at the Velvet, and some think it’s just that it’s tragic, that the protagonist is a loser, who will never win. I don’t know about that. Maybe. I’m more open about what it means – dark, tragic, with a certain mood and tone. But I’m not sure if noir, or neo-noir, has to have a bad ending, that tragedy. I’m still learning. And in the end, I don’t really care about the labels, I just want it to be a fantastic read.

Disintegration has nothing to do with Transubstantiate, I’ll just answer that straight out. BUT…there may be a sequel to Transubstantiate someday. I have some ideas.

How soon? Well, I hope to finish writing it this year, and maybe have it land at a press next year, so that means as early as 2011, but most likely 2012 or later. I’ll be shopping it around, and have a short list of presses and agents that want to see it.

What’s it about? It’s about a man who loses everything, his family, his life, his identity. He slips into this darkness, he separates himself from society, goes off the grid, and starts to do work for a shady man. The work gets more violent, until he starts killing people, on assignment, and descends into a life that is far removed from what he once was. But somewhere down there, he still has hope, still seeks out a connection, still clings to some sort of hope. It’s dark, much darker than Transubstantiate, and I’m thinking this one may be more of a tragedy, more fitting to the noir label (or neo-noir). It’s a mix of Falling Down and Dexter and is a lot more influenced by the style and writing of Will Christopher Baer. I think it’s my best work yet.

What’s the immediate future hold for you and Transubstantiate?

Well, I hope that we’ll sell some books, get some attention, and help build my audience. Everyone has been great, very supportive, people all over the world. I’m really excited about Shivers VI (Cemetery Dance) coming out in September, so many great authors in that anthology, Bram Stoker winners, great company, that should get me some more attention. I’m reading at Quimby’s in Chicago on October 16th, that’ll be fun. My first book club in Kirkwood, MO (St. Louis) in late October. I can’t wait for Murky Depths to come out, early 2011, and would love to get into more comics/graphic novels, pair up with an illustrator, that would be fun. And of course, finishing up Disintegration. And my MFA down at Murray State University in Kentucky. So, lots going on. I just want to keep writing, keep getting better, start sending out short stories again (I’ve been really dead as far as that goes, just haven’t had any time, and I published everything I had built up in the intensives, over the last three years).

And I’m excited to keep supporting all of my friends that are publishing: Nik Korpon has Stay God coming out at OWP this December, and Brandon Tietz is re-releasing Out of Touch with us too, and Michael Sonbert too, also joining the family; Caleb Ross has I Didn’t Mean to be Kevin with Black Coffee Press; Simon West-Bulford has a book at Medallion, The Soul Consortium. I LOVE all of these books, I’ve read them all. Great books, really talented authors. All guys from Write Club, the Cult, the Velvet. I’m so excited for all of them, we’re all breaking out at the same time, couldn’t be more fun, more thrilling.

***

The Oxyfication review of Transubstantiate can be read HERE (Mild Spoilers).

The website of Transubstantiate can be found HERE.

Transubstantiate can be ordered from all major online booksellers (Amazon, B&N) or directly from the publisher HERE.

Casual brutality, sex, and disorder: the heroes of noir have never been terribly endearing to the heart, but the seven nihilistic souls of Richard Thomas’s Transubstantiate seem like they were born ruined, and are likely to die that way. The story draws heavily on all the beloved accouterments of the neo-noir tradition— fractured narratives; cynicism; disorientation; ruthless beatings— but the story branches out into other areas, exploring themes of mysticism and the unknowable, even broaching the peripheral terrors of Lovecraftian horror.

We follow our seven characters over the course of events in both real time and in flashbacks as they struggle for survival in the throes of exponentially-worsening disasters. If it’s bad, it likely gets worse. Most of these people started off as convicted murderers; those were the good old days. There’s the man who poisoned his cheating wife (Jacob); the woman whose sexuality seems to lead to someone’s death just as often as gratification (Marcy); the ex-cop who carries out murders he considers “just” (Gordon). It all catches up to them, and soon our incarcerated antiheroes are thrown together and given what appears to be a second chance when they are chosen for a rehabilitation program on a remote island—except, it’s not a rehabilitation program. It’s a shadowy experiment. And how often do those turn out well?

Soon, a virus has swept over the planet, killing off most of humanity. That’s not quite the bad news. With the world now in ruins, no one is at the wheel and society has run amok: bloodthirsty tribes and mad dogs roam the cities, and those not wishing to be killed (or worse) are forced to seek out safety underground. Meanwhile, back on the island, the situation is no less hopeless. Our characters, who have been forced at gunpoint by their captors to run a mock society and play pretend for the benefit of island newcomers, have but two options. Neither is terribly appealing: A) Escape to the mainland, the barbaric state of which they do not fully comprehend, or B) Remain on the island– a paradise, except that it is essentially an elaborate prison camp (hey, at least you can steal a view of the beach— though do so at your own risk), and that the experiment in which they are trapped seems to have become a headless nightmare.

What is happening? The virus, the experiment, the charade on the island; is someone watching it all transpire, pulling the strings? That may be the character known as Assigned. The chief antagonist, Assigned’s narrative thread is largely represented by nothing but a chilling readout of computer language and script logs; an abandoned program grown sentient, or something worse. Assigned is watching every move that’s made on island, but who (or what) is it? A program gone haywire, or the tangible shard of some alien consciousness? Was mankind in collusion with dark forces? The character known as X seems to have an idea. In fact, he may even have been one such force; a manipulative mystic, spiritually (but not morally) enlightened, possibly inhuman, and acting as something of a psychic warden at the behest of those running the experiment. Willingly, of course. X is furthering his own agenda; this makes him somewhat detached from the plight of mankind, despite that he’s probably the best shot it now has for survival. His powers are shamanistic in nature— mental projection, healing, divination. His true motives are unclear. Is X an agent for humanity’s evolution, or the harbinger of its collapse?

Though the plot is a veritable straitjacket of mysteries, the telling is lean, even spare: this book is brisk, wicked, and blood-soaked. In fact, the story reads much like a 200-page climax– Thomas’s writing is always on the move, always frantic, surging forward essentially without pause, all while maintaining an intricate weave of narrative threads with deceptive ease. Our heroes may play to a familiar type–  they are selfish avengers, benumbed by blood and tragedy into a final, jagged archetype of skewed morality that goes unchallenged by even the most earthshaking developments– but the backdrop of sci-fi pulp keeps everything fresh and unpredictable: otherworldly shock troops materialize out of thin air. Teleportation devices lie hidden in caves. Microchip implants. Ancient relics. Anthropomorphic animals. There is, in fact, a sense that the plot machinery of Transubstantiate runs deep, and has likely ground up many lost souls before these. In a way, this validates its corrosive noir cynicism. The story’s true depth and scope are likely known only to X, and he’s not exactly the sharing type. And so the cause of it all lies largely outside the reach of the unenlightened.

Still, the theme of biological evolution appears more than once during the course of the story. It’s suggested that human potential has not been reached, and it’s implied that the powerful X may be using the island and its inhabitants to engineer his own Eden– a vision of the future of humanity, of what it could become. If that’s the case– if these survivors are destined to evolve– let’s hope they learn to control their ids a bit. As it stands, it seems like one X per planet may be enough.

Follow Richard Thomas @ whatdoesnotkillme.com

Buy Transubstantiate from Otherworld Publications

Bret Easton Ellis burst onto the literary scene in 1985 with his debut novel, Less Than Zero. Less Than Zero was born smack-dab in the middle of the Reagan 80’s, a time of debauchery and decadence shrouded in a Cold War haze; the dawning of the era where the self-indulgent I would obliterate the once-united We into exile. MTV was in its infancy and Betamax was promising technology.  Clay, Less Than Zero’s protagonist, had a problem merging on freeways, and couldn’t seem to shake the implications of an overbearing billboard in Los Angeles which read, DISAPPEAR HERE.  Clay’s fellow cast of characters: Blair, Julian, Rip, Trent, and others were just as rich, high, and sex-starved as Clay was, and for them, enough was never enough; they saw, they snorted, and they weren’t apologetic for it.  They were the sons and daughters of Hollywood’s movers and shakers, movie producers, real estate agents, and they had the trust funds to prove it.  This group never really had to concern themselves with anything because everything was always given to them.  Less Than Zero was a perfect novel for imperfect times.  They even made a movie based on the book.

Fitting then that twenty-five years later, Imperial Bedroom, Bret Easton Ellis’s sequel to Less Than Zero opens with the line, “They had made a movie about us.”  It’s an intriguing angle to the daunting task of reacquainting an audience after so much time has passed with characters that helped define a generation, all without the author coming off as hedonistic blowhard bent on trying to recapture the past glory of his famed debut.  And for the most part, Imperial Bedrooms and Bret Easton Ellis avoid that pitfall. One of Ellis’s chief strengths has always been his ability to blur the razor-thin line between fantasy and reality to the point where it’s hard to distinguish between the two; Imperial Bedrooms is no exception.  As the book opens Clay has once again just returned to Los Angeles.  Now a successful screenwriter, he’s back in town to help cast the movie adaptation of his novel, “The Listeners” (a wink to the real-life Ellis collection The Informers anyone?).  He’s convinced his condo is haunted by the ghost of the 8-year old boy who lived there prior, he’s being tailed by a blue Jeep, and he’s getting mysterious text messages saying, amongst other things, “I’m watching you.”  He’s running into the Botoxed ghosts of his past at industry parties around town and they haven’t much changed since the mid-80’s.  Blair is married to Trent, but had an affair with Julian, and Rip is still living off his trust fund.  At one of the parties Clay meets a girl named Rain Turner, “The look is blond and wholesome, mid-western, distinctly American, not what I’m usually into. She’s obviously an actress because girls who look like this aren’t out here for any other reason…” and he’s instantly stricken.  “Do you want to be in a movie?” he asks her, and she responds, “Why? Do you have a movie you want to put me in?”  The seemingly simple encounter starts a chain reaction of events which become the crux of Imperial Bedrooms.  Along the way there is kinky sex, bloated corpses, salacious videos, and coke-induced nosebleeds; this is Hollywood after all.  There’s a bit of the despicable, and just when you think Ellis has reached as far as he can go, he goes farther.  If you’re looking for decency, a sense of morality, and overall likable characters, you’re in the wrong place.  In this world everyone is a narcissistic.  As the last line of the book reads, “I never liked anyone and I’m afraid of people.”  Sound familiar?

Less Than Zero shocked people when it was published; the book helped show Conservative America what was really going on behind closed doors, whether they liked it or not.  Twenty-five years later, we’re not so easily shocked; everyone has the internet, everyone goes to psychiatrists, and everyone has access to the best prescription meds.  The class system no longer dictates who gets to be a f*!k up; it’s not a rich person’s privilege anymore.  One of the more infamous scenes in Less Than Zero involved the snuff film Clay’s friend paid $15,000 for. Back then a snuff film was a novelty, something you had to happen across or know the “right” person to see.  Not anymore; Hollywood is up to Saw 115 by now and with the film’s producers still rolling in the cash there’s no end in sight. Fiction is no longer scarier than reality.  The characters of Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms might be rich, the exterior of their lives might look more like an unscripted version of The Hills than a tale of middle-America.  But is that really the case? Their desires–sex, money, power–and their insecurities are the same as anyone else. Is the social-economic gap, the difference between driving a BMW or a beaten-up Buick, or sleeping with the hot girl or just wishing that you could be sleeping with the hot girl really that big of a canyon? Keep an eye on the Facebook status updates from your friends and ask yourself that question again.

In the end Imperial Bedrooms is a tale of morality, and how one’s definition of what morality means can shape the world around them, as only Bret Easton Ellis can tell it.  Naysayers might ask if Imperial Bedrooms really adds anything new to the story of the characters of Less Than Zero twenty-five years later, and the truth is no, it probably doesn’t.  But how many high school reunions, how many mirrors tell the same picture day after day? That old cliche, “The more things change the more they stay the same,” that’s so true. And perhaps that’s the scary part.  But even so Imperial Bedrooms is one helluva read.

One showcases, among other things, the smallness of the world. The musicians within hail from all over the globe: Australia, Belarus, Ukraine, the UK, Germany, the United States. Beyond that, the album boasts an inspiring ingenuity that reminds us, without having to say it, that music is as vital a force as nature; it will find release. Project Bluebird boasts over twelve writers.The twins comprising Aloe Up— a folk outfit with elements of breakbeat electronica— collaborate across an ocean, one in Denver, one in London. Tom Peel’s backing tracks come out of a reel-to-reel tape recorder strapped to his chest like a bomb. There would be easier ways to come up with a backing track, but none of them would cry “Listen!” quite so loudly.

There is a joyful recklessness to this compilation; these do-it-yourselfers came together on last.fm, and have released this compilation as a free download, available here, under diym netlabel. An interactive net radio station, a hodgepodge of made-it-in-the-bedroom musicians, a DIY label, a free download— does it get anymore grassroots? Industrial soundscapes (“Prelude” by DateMonthYear) sit cozily next to Black Flag-meets-The Cars basement rock (“Good at Night” by Bill Strange); the chaotically cool electronica of deadcat (“C11H16BrNO2”) arrives just a few songs away from the rustic psalm of Project Bluebird’s “Once in the Forest.”

There are too many individual moments to cover comprehensively, but the gross effect of all these styles together under one roof is almost subliminal. Brokenkites’ meditative, pulsing dream track “Silent Sun I” plays like a soundtrack for a nighttime walk in a city with which you’re unfamiliar. Brunk’s track “hank and I were just bored” has a loungy, existential vibe, playing over a looped sample of a man and a woman having a conversation about sex. It’s sort of Portishead, sort of…not. Moya’s “Die Hard” is a psychedelic piano-and-guitar piece that plays out like a desert hallucination, gradually rising in intensity until a snarling guitar coda releases the tension (this track would find itself right at home in a Quentin Tarantino movie). Tom Peel’s “I’m Pretty Sure It’s Something” is a beatific and contemplative song about the ebb and flow of life on Earth, using the moon as its primary metaphor. Awaycaboose’s “Lullaby for Navidson” is appropriately haunting, a couple of ominous notes woven over top of a barely-there growl. But of all the unconventional songs in the collection, it’s Pete Davis’ slightly less adventurous “Fool” that sets itself apart— a brief, banjo-driven squall of layered vocals and taut songwriting, “Fool” absolutely soars. Davis manages to sound like ten people in one body, all of them gifted.

The unifying characteristic of all these songs– some fun, some cerebral, some just strange– is that they exist due to a labor of love; there’s little doubt that “established” acts also love their work, but there is an endearing purity to this collection that elevates it. One is no curiosity; it’s the natural collapse of barriers. These people are unafraid to experiment, and to do it on their own– following their intuition, creating music from a place of feeling and emotion. There’s little chance such a recording would fail to be compelling.

The free download is available here.

Track List:

1. My Life – Matthew That
2. Prelude – DateMonthYear
3. Good at Night – Bill Strange
4. Carry Them – Aloe Up
5. Silent Sun I – Brokenkites
6. Les Absents – Joe Jack Wagner
7. Fool – Pete Davis
8. Demo II – Solarein
9. hank and I were just bored – Brunk
10. Cosmic Interference – Joanofarke
11. shadows on the carpet – EL Heath
12. Once in the Forest – Project Bluebird
13. Die Hard – Moya
14. The Other Side – The Peach Tree
15. Kissing Your Beetle Bloodied Lips – Speculativism
16. I’m Pretty Sure It’s Something – Tom Peel
17. Sh0tSignal – SilverlagE
18. Sympathy – Terry Springford
19. Lost Subway Wind – Wolfframe
20. C11H16BrNO2 – deadcat
21. automat#1 – Elektrolandmusik
22. Bruno the Songdog – Kissing Zebra Jones
23. Lullaby for Navidson – awaycaboose
24. Hope Has Taken Me – Jason Silver
25. 06:06 a.m. – Greate world in g – psyPi!!Z
26. jukebox gemini girl – Fili O (so cool)
27. A Toast – Dan Masquelier

Caleb Ross’ stories do not behoove summaries. Let’s just get that out of the way. Let’s also just say that they contain blood drinking, deformity, death, and disfigurement, to varying degrees. These stories swirl like nightmares: a populace of anti-protagonists so wounded that there is generally no hope for their redemption. The reader acts as sponge, absorbing their pain. Making sense of it. As the reader, you are the first man on the scene; as such, you are to perform the tasks the characters themselves are no longer capable of performing: observe, record, and interpret. Seek your own closure. And be careful to distance yourself from these people, because they’re collapsing stars, and you could be swallowed right along with them. Your job is only to do the above, and to pretend you dont share something universal with each and every one of these poor souls.

Oh, it’s not as dire a task as it sounds. There is true wonder here: Charactered Pieces is a glass menagerie of deformity, a collection of short stories that is utterly fearless in its willingness to spill blood, shock, and soothe. Unlike most horror fiction, you can’t step away and dismiss these stories with simple logic– they do not contain supernatural bogeymen, mad killers or fiends. These stories contain normal people crushed under the wheels of circumstance and the weight of guilt. The characters within are far beyond damaged– they are wrecked. Busted parents and screwed up kids; scarred, ruined, and weighed down with ten tons of remorse and pain wrapped in cancerous silence. Like individual flaws in the same junk diamond, they share some unspeakable pain in one way or another. But all this hurt isn’t dreamt up for the author’s detached amusement, or for the titilliation of some nihlistic reader– this is a bid for communion where it is needed most. In each story the characters’ struggles are the result of some long-incubated despair, intimate and undeniable as a deathbed rasp. Come close. Listen: that the main character in The Camel of Morocco— an architect tortured by guilt after the collapse of a mosque on which he performed renovations— could reach the course of action that he does with the reader’s suspension of disbelief intact is a small miracle, if miracle is the word. These characters cry for empathy. You will be tested on whether you can abide.

This isn’t shock for the sake of shock. This isn’t to get a rise out of you; this isn’t a museum of cruelty. There is never the sense that Ross is toying with you, manipulating your sympathies. On the contrary, like a synthesis of Raymond Carver’s ability to paint in 100 shades of grey and Chuck Palahniuk’s reckless abandon for the limits of taste, Charactered Pieces is an honest look at the darkness that humans both create and endure; a catharsis by way of misery, sweating out the toxins. Apparently even pain can be beautiful– what else could explain feeling even remotely upbeat, as I did, at the end of the eponymously-titled first story Charactered Pieces, witnessing the main character lovingly painting the semi-formed toenails of an unborn fetus? Yeah. Out of context it sounds over-the-top, but withinin the context of the story it’s an act that is as loving as it is surreal.

Fathers fail; buildings collapse; people visit unending pain on themselves and their loved ones. Love. The word sounds unreachable, like a star whose death we haven’t yet recorded but whose light is still visible. Refracted through Ross’ prose— at turns both brutal and poetic— it can yield understanding. Maybe even hope. Like a collection of photos of our absolute worst moments, Charactered Pieces works to dull the edge of suffering through exposure; toughening the spirit, leading us into and through the places we fear. Though maybe we shouldn’t leap to conclusions on that hope business: “The wind sounds like wind,” closes The Camel of Morocco. The implication is that our guilt, however crushing, is to be dealt with. We are perhaps on our own.

Caleb’s website: www.calebjross.com

“Edgewater was once a pretty normal ‘burb,” writes Drew Ballard, the narrator of Major Inversions. “Now, everyone you meet is in the process of becoming something.” This little seaside town has undergone some growing pains in the past couple of years. It is the suburb of what is becoming a burgeoning film town, the Hollywood of the eastern seaboard: Wilmington, North Carolina. It might not have Hollywood’s platinum sparkle, but movies get made in Wilmington, and everyone wants to get a break in the industry. As such, everyone in Edgewater has become something of a split personality: actor/bartender. Writer/caterer. Somebody/nobody.

Drew’s a musician/security guard, but that’s not even half of his identity crisis. Drew’s something of a de facto drug kingpin in the local entertainment circuit, though “kingpin” is a stretch. Basically, he just bribes club owners with drugs to sew up gigs for his cover band. Still, he seems to be everyone’s connection, and “kingpin” is just the kind of exaggeration Edgewater invites.

Drew’s status as a guitar god and womanizer (stage name: Jag) is an ephemeral trick of the night; without his glam wig and choreography, Drew’s just…Drew. In the daytime, he works as a security guard, watches football, and kills time with Barron, a socially inept graduate student and Drew’s hated roommate. Drew ridicules Barron without mercy, but clearly the validity of the source is to be questioned: in one scene, Drew casually picks up a telemarketer over the phone, which leads to a rendezvous. When the pair meet, Drew is so palpably disappointed with his date (and with himself) that the perfunctory sex he was jonesing for doesn’t even make it to a bedroom– they just get it over with in a parking lot.

When Drew is introduced to Layla through mutual acquaintance Barron, at first he resists the implication (Get it together, man!). Drew knows his life may not be perfect, but at least he knows how to hug the turns. But, soon enough, Drew and Layla find themselves drawn together anyway. She seems different somehow; she stirs dormant feelings in him. Is it love? Or maybe just the side effects of this alien expectation of fidelity? In any case, under her influence Drew’s life seems to stabilize. He lands a gig through Layla’s father scoring the music for a film by a first-time director. It seems a turning point, and he struggles to find focus and clean up his act— the expected course of action, he assumes, for a man on the cusp of a serious relationship. He succeeds about half of the time: not quite sure how to be an adult and too old to be a child, there is a defensive cunning to Drew that never relents. But it goes farther than being simply a tacked-on character trait; Drew was an adopted child. He is essentially rootless; a tree of no branches. What does he know how to be, other than a hyphenate?

Maybe family holds the answers he seeks. Maybe he needs to know his real identity in order to forge ahead in life with any sense of real purpose. Ever resistant to change, Drew at first dismisses the idea of looking for his birth parents. But by and by he again caves, and when the story’s over, it’s evident Drew should have listened to his instincts all along. Secrets lurk in the periphery of Drew’s waking life. Turns out being a drug dealing metal demigod was not such a bad gig.

Major Inversions is Highland’s first novel, and it’s got a high IQ and so many twists you’ll need a chiropractor. Full of clever prose, wicked humor and colorful characters, It’s a story about the precarious nature of human personalities, and how close we are to completely losing it. In fact, it has a couple of things going on at its core, the first being a somewhat sideways ode to hedonism: it’s only when Drew tries to get his shit together and become a responsible adult that his life truly jumps the rails for good. Is it karma coming to get him? In much the way the characters in Requiem for a Dream harbored delusions of grandeur that blew up in their faces, the Major Inversions triad— Drew, Layla and Barron— find themselves destroyed in one way or another by appetites that grew out of control. In Selby’s book, the wrecking drug was heroin; in Highland’s, the wrecking drugs are frighteningly ordinary: stability. Happiness. Normalcy. But further, the blame can’t be passed around to all the characters equally in Major Inversions. The main difference between the two sets of characters is that those in Requiem controlled their own fates. They made stupefyingly bad decisions and fell under their own avarice. In Major Inversions, the characters aren’t always at the controls; there is a puppeteer pulling the strings, so we can hardly blame those characters who find themselves broken at the story’s close– they just didn’t have the info required to save themselves. It’s almost draconian the way the architect of the book’s major disaster manipulates the lives of the others to satisfy a personal curiosity.

Aside from that, it’s a story of identity, or lack thereof. What fills the vacuum when we don’t know ourselves? When Drew loses himself to exterior forces, what does he become? Fantasy, usually. Edgewater’s a suburban town gone schizo– its citizens slave in day jobs to bankroll their illusions. Drew’s got issues; Layla’s an innocent falling into all the pitfalls parents fear for their daughters (and some they would utterly gasp to imagine); Barron’s an academic who has lost his way. But it’s Drew we follow. At his job as a security guard at a courthouse, Drew guesses the monetary worth of those who pass through the metal detectors he oversees. When everyone in town has got a dollar sign tattooed to their foreheads, it’s easy to let dreams of success and happiness mushroom out of control, growing into things we find hideous. Forget Chinatown; it’s Edgewater.

Order Major Inversions: www.gdotcom.com

Supergroups are all the rave this decade.  Velvet Revolver.  Audioslave.   The Raconteurs.  Chickenfoot.  Next in line are the Monsters of Folk: Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, super-producer Mike Mogis, Retro-Nuevo troubadour M. Ward, and My Morning Jacket front man Jim James.  If the gold standard is the Traveling Wilburys—and it is—the Traveling Wilburys they are not, despite so many media types deeming them to be the next coming.  Nor are they folk in the most Woody Guthrie sense of the word.  Neither declaration is their fault– somebody inevitably has to label them something– but none of the four are far enough along in their careers to carry the burden of being mentioned in the same breath as eternal heavyweights such as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, or Roy Orbison, nor should they be held accountable (though in truth it is their own fault) for the awfully awful moniker.  But their intent seems serious enough, and the Monsters of Folk set out for a full-on musical movement with their self-titled debut.  Whether they come close to accomplishing that, however, is up for a serious debate.

Monsters Of Folk starts off with “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)” and right away Jim Jones and the boys sound like they’re trying to harness their inner Thom Yorke; the song has such a Radiohead “Nude” remix vibe to it that it proves a difficult pace setter for what’s to follow.  Next up is the Oberst led “Say Please” and it’s a complete about face; high on harmony, Oberst heads towards Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young country with Ward on guitar doing an earnest ode to Neil, and though it’s better than its predecessor,  it too falls a few miles short.  Ward leads the way on “Whole Lotta Losin’” and it’s as close as Monsters Of Folk comes to full-fledged romp; Ward is known for his reverence of yesteryear, and like most of his solo stuff, “Losin” is a all-in win; the first homerun of the album.

Monsters of Folk has its share of them, and they seem to come with higher frequency in the Jones-heavy numbers such as “The Right Place” with its alt-country twang that is perfect for this band of misfits; when Jones sings, “I’m in the right place” he’s spot on.  “Baby Boomer” is perhaps the best compilation; with its Johnny Cash-chug-a-chug/The Statler Brothers “Flowers On The Wall”-esque foundation,  Ward, Oberst, and Jones play off each other as if they were always meant to.  When Oberst is left to his own device Monsters can too easily fall into a pattern of sounding too much like another Bright Eyes record however.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that—he’s rightfully earned his place at this table—but the grey area lies in the fact that if you didn’t know any better, the “other guys” can too easily—and do—sound like other guys.  “Man Named Truth” is an exception; the tune is equal parts of everyone he claims to be influenced by, from Dylan, to Young, to especially Emmylou Harris; the tune is tasty, as easily accessible as it is addicting, and the other guys stand out as much as they fit in.

If there’s one common criticism of Monsters Of Folk as a collective of creative guys at the height of their respective creating primes it’s that at more times than not it feels too shared for the sake of sharing, less organic than it probably should; too many times they trade turns shining in the spotlight than they share in shining in it together.  There’s a lot or promise, more than a few payoffs, but it’s less cohesive, and even less coercive.  That and at the conclusion of the album it loses steam quicker than a freight train out of coal.  Monsters Of Folk concludes with “His Master’s Voice” and regrettably it’s a Rip Van Winkle yawn.  People who want to like this album because they worship the guys behind it probably will see little wrong with it; for all intents and purposes, these guys are as close as their generation’s Traveling Wilburys as they’re going to get, and why not love that.  But a more objective person will take pause, noticing the flaws as much as the promise.

As a whole, Monsters Of Folk, is definitely worth a listen, and it’ll be an entertaining one.  Just don’t go in expecting a grand finale.  There are plenty of bottle rockets here.  Just be happy to take what you can get.

Jónsi & Alex is Jónsi Birgisson, Sigur Rós vocalist/guitar player-with-bow extraordinaire, and Alex Somers, musician and visual artist to, among others, Sigur Rós.  On their debut album, Riceboy Sleeps, they combine for one mother of a meandering glide through the subtleties of sound.  The album started as a side project between Sigur Rós recordings and that’s about the best place to start talking about it.  While Sigur Rós two most recent studio releases, Takk… and Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaus are—dare I say—more accessible/less steam-of-consciousness than their predecessors— Jónsi & Alex with Riceboy Sleeps veer backwards more towards the epic ethereal territory of ( ).  The spacey, outer-worldly journey of Riceboy Sleeps feels like a walk through the valley of imagination; at times it sounds like it could be the lost soundtrack to a film you’ve never seen but know the script by heart, and yet it can just as well be the strange look by a stranger you can’t take your eyes off of.  Spare of almost any vocals, Riceboy Sleeps focuses more on the symmetry of the submissive, each song seamlessly bleeding into the next, free of any real climax, but sustained of something special, always beneath the surface, but never without a face.  With its light sound Riceboy Sleeps isn’t for the light-hearted; if you want the meat and potatoes of Sigur Rós you better point yourself somewhere else.  But if you can walk into Riceboy Sleeps with an open mind, Jónsi & Alex will help open your ears.  Give it a chance and you’ll be amazed what you hear; you don’t have to be a believer to believe.

These days it’s getting harder and harder to find something to smile about. Grin, the second album of Toronto-based blueVenus offers itself for consideration.  Grin is a tale of hurdles; the overcoming of them, the outright avoidance of them, and the tracks of tears and smiles of the miles in between.

The album starts with the title-track and for a few seconds it sounds like you’re about to head down to O Brother, Where Art Thou? country.  But right before you get to the crossroads, blueVenus hits the breaks on Bourbon Street and the dancing ensues.  By the time you hear, “Everyone will say life gave you a lemon/You just got to grin” it’s too late; grief or not, you’re feeling funky and ready to go along for the ride.  On guitar Devrim Eldelekli is a virtuoso of cool, wielding his axe with a dizzying precision, transitioning seamlessly from the bad-ass bluesy riffs of “In Between” to the radiating roar of the Johnny Greenwood-reminiscent rumble of “Lucky Well” and “The Life” to the jazzy jamming on the Fiona Apple-ish “No Time To Waste,” which also showcases the potent pipes of Andrea De Boer.  To say De Boer has a powerful voice is selling her short; she can sound as delicate as fine China—and we’re talking the good stuff that momma only brings out only for holiday dinners—and as powerful as a cabaret crooner from a bygone era of women singers who only needed one name because they were that damn good: Ella, Billie, Janis, you name it, Andrea De Boer can hold her own.

Together, Eldelekli and De Boer are as much sound mates as they are soul mates, and as listeners we’re treated to their sweet intimacies.  Difficult to squeeze into a genrelization, there’s no doubt Grin has a pop sensibility to it; the album is catchy, laden with tunes tailor made for the tapping of toes.  Even when it threatens to get cheesy with a song like “Happy Tune”, the ska/early No Doubt vibe that starts things off gives way to a perfectly happy-go-lucky ditty, summing up everything that’s good and bad about those parts of adolescence that we’re supposed to grow out of, but never do (if ever a song was made for a John Hughes movie it’s this) and by the end you find yourself with a fitting grin.  You could call the album jazz, pop, rock, or any number of other modifiers and they’d all fit, but above everything else Grin is fun.  Take “Ohrwurm”, just when it sounds like you’re getting a long-lost outtake from Sgt. Pepper Eldelekli goes Jay-Z and busts out a German rap.  If you don’t know German what he says is anybody’s guess, but it fits, and it’s fun, and there’s not just something to that; there’s something to be said about that.  Smiling might not be as easy and organic as it used to be.  But there are no sour lemons behind this Grin; in matters of sound, blueVenus is as sweet as they come.   Drink it up.

A strange question occurred to me as Backspacer drew to a close for the first time on my stereo; it was about halfway through what is certainly the band’s most mature song yet, the cinematic and winsome “The End,” a song both about death and the presence of life: what would Kurt Cobain be doing right now, at this very minute?

It isn’t stealing Eddie’s moment. And it isn’t a question that has occurred to me during any other Pearl Jam song to this point. Maybe it was the subject matter that got me thinking. Or maybe it was that this song seems to be a sort of coming of age. This is Eddie Vedder’s song, and he commands it through an elevated sense of craft he probably was not capable of up until these past few years. Many times I’ve felt that Kurt Cobain had a similar future, but the thought had never occurred to me so forcefully, and never inspired directly by a piece of music. These two men shared a moment in music history and, as such, they seem to be inextricable in many ways. If Eddie Vedder remains in the spotlight as long as, say, Mick Jagger has, he will still be dogged by the nineties, and the voices left behind– among them, Cobain’s, and his own. On “The End,” Vedder is virtually alone on the track, backed by a string arrangement you would scarcely believe was possible if you were listening to the band back in the early nineties; back then, Pearl Jam was like a star at critical mass. Who would’ve thought they’d outlive their angst?

They did, but there was a long period of mourning. Even with an above-average number of great songs, their body of work since No Code— the album where most agree they martyred themselves to the radio gods— was clouded with a morbid sense of self-awareness and second-guessing. Even if they found themselves squirming under the limelight in 1995, at least Pearl Jam still had an identity to rail against. Once they ducked out of the party and the door locked shut behind them, that identity was gone and they found themselves staring into a void. Backspacer, at last, sounds a new chapter– turns out a damn good party was just a short walk across town.

The shortest album in their catalog, Backspacer is also their most dynamic, a birthday bash for a band embracing its middle age with all cylinders firing. The album in turn showcases a vulnerability and liveliness we’ve probably not associated with Pearl Jam before: traits like humor emerge. Humor! “Johnny Guitar,” for example: a short, raucous, song written about funk icon Johnny “Guitar” Watson— purportedly inspired by nothing but a picture hanging above a urinal— is nothing if it isn’t fun; a funky, freewheeling word game. Compare it to a song from their previous album that’s similar in spirit, “Life Wasted;” a good song that could have been better, if it only bought what it was selling. “Johnny Guitar” isn’t selling a thing, on the other hand. It doesn’t need to shout its philosophy; you just dig it.

There is a real sense of community on this record, a looseness of style that calls up so many different influences. At times it feels like a festival set; varied, jubilant, and crowd-pleasing to the extreme. Consider: the instant, easy appeal of “Force of Nature”— a gnarly marriage of Neil Young crunch with U2 grandiosity; the lush and beautiful “Just Breathe,” with its road-trippin’ vibe that makes you want to have a cigarette and just look up at the starry night; “Supersonic,” a new wave punk dynamo, taking a page from both The Cars and The Ramones; “Amongst the Waves,” with an epic build that takes its cue from Pearl Jam circa Ten, and comes pretty damn close to recreating the hugeness of past anthems like “Alive” without retreading the material or the mood. All of this under one roof makes for a truly full and satisfying soundscape.

To see the band— who may be swiftly growing into our youngest rock immortals— find comfort in their own skin at last is a welcome development. Angst can only take you so far, and sometimes you can’t come back. This question that occurred to me about Eddie’s lost peer as the album was coming to a close did so because the last song on Backspacer does not play safe. It’s a loaded gun. For all the band’s declarations that love is the answer, there is still a very real restlessness to be dealt with: something that remains, despite how much we kick or how hard we punch. Pearl Jam’s knuckles have been bloody for years, but with Backspacer it’s time for a truce. Will it last? Time will tell. For now, they don’t want a fight; they wanna rock.