Love is the Law started as a joke, really. My then-agent had me on the phone about another novel which she was, predictably, having trouble selling. Her bright idea—the one after "be Don DeLillo" lead to Under My Roof—was to write a "boy book." Everyone's so worried about those little boys who don't read, you know, because of all that girly kid stuff. And YA is where all the money is, after all.
So it just came pouring out. "How about..." I said, "Harriet the Spy*!" My agent said "huh" so I said, "But punk." It would be the 1980s. And she'd sneak around, looking in through windows, and see a murder.
"Whose murder?"
"Her older boyfriend's murder! Who was very into Crowley! And also a Trotskyist! And she'd have to solve the crime. And the Berlin Wall was being torn down on TV when she came across the body, so she's really half-convinced it was a suicide."
My agent didn't say much about a YA novel after that, which was my plan. (I have a new agent now.) I tweeted the essence of the conversation and got some laughs. But Rachel Edidin, who edited The Damned Highway, took is seriously. She would read the shit out of the book. Then she emailed me, with the subject header: "Noir Punk Rock Harriet the Spy Who's Into Crowley"
Seriously. Or pitch it as a comic.
I wrote the first thousand words that afternoon. I got up to about 20,000 words to complete the sample, and submitted it to Dark Horse. Then Rachel bought it after a few months of contemplation, and even the slight return of "YA"—can the protag be a teen? That was a question from marketing/sales.
No, she cannot.
Okay, that will be fine.
This year, Rachel left Dark Horse, and my agent retired. The book is still trudging forward. It's now up for pre-order from Things From Another World, which is awesome. See? Amazon and bn.com have it up too. No Powells yet, but soon I presume.
So, this is a crime novel. There's perhaps a soupcon of the supernatural involved. Things do not go well for anyone. One person who read it thought it was my "most personal" book. Another asked why the main character never takes the time to masturbate. I have a blurb, from K. J. A. Wishnia (a couple more may be forthcoming):
Nick Mamatas has a unique voice--intelligent, anarchic, literate, iconoclastic--and it all comes together in this twisted tale of Punk Rock, Trotskyism and Aleister Crowley. What other writer would take Long Island’s defense industry to task for Cold War profiteering, refer to “that old cryptofascist, Robert Moses,” and tell you that playing hard-to-get is just “Victorian morality and market-based sexual political economy”? This book is for the suburban fifth columnist in us all.
If this sounds at all interesting to you, I'd ask you to please pre-order the book. From any venue you like, of course. For my Dark Horse titles, I prefer Portland's own Things From Another World. (Unlike amazon, TFAW also has the correct release date: Sept 25th. Reward accuracy!)
Thanks.
*I always preferred The Long Secret, as it took place on Long Island.
So it just came pouring out. "How about..." I said, "Harriet the Spy*!" My agent said "huh" so I said, "But punk." It would be the 1980s. And she'd sneak around, looking in through windows, and see a murder.
"Whose murder?"
"Her older boyfriend's murder! Who was very into Crowley! And also a Trotskyist! And she'd have to solve the crime. And the Berlin Wall was being torn down on TV when she came across the body, so she's really half-convinced it was a suicide."
My agent didn't say much about a YA novel after that, which was my plan. (I have a new agent now.) I tweeted the essence of the conversation and got some laughs. But Rachel Edidin, who edited The Damned Highway, took is seriously. She would read the shit out of the book. Then she emailed me, with the subject header: "Noir Punk Rock Harriet the Spy Who's Into Crowley"
Seriously. Or pitch it as a comic.
I wrote the first thousand words that afternoon. I got up to about 20,000 words to complete the sample, and submitted it to Dark Horse. Then Rachel bought it after a few months of contemplation, and even the slight return of "YA"—can the protag be a teen? That was a question from marketing/sales.
No, she cannot.
Okay, that will be fine.
This year, Rachel left Dark Horse, and my agent retired. The book is still trudging forward. It's now up for pre-order from Things From Another World, which is awesome. See? Amazon and bn.com have it up too. No Powells yet, but soon I presume.
So, this is a crime novel. There's perhaps a soupcon of the supernatural involved. Things do not go well for anyone. One person who read it thought it was my "most personal" book. Another asked why the main character never takes the time to masturbate. I have a blurb, from K. J. A. Wishnia (a couple more may be forthcoming):
Nick Mamatas has a unique voice--intelligent, anarchic, literate, iconoclastic--and it all comes together in this twisted tale of Punk Rock, Trotskyism and Aleister Crowley. What other writer would take Long Island’s defense industry to task for Cold War profiteering, refer to “that old cryptofascist, Robert Moses,” and tell you that playing hard-to-get is just “Victorian morality and market-based sexual political economy”? This book is for the suburban fifth columnist in us all.
If this sounds at all interesting to you, I'd ask you to please pre-order the book. From any venue you like, of course. For my Dark Horse titles, I prefer Portland's own Things From Another World. (Unlike amazon, TFAW also has the correct release date: Sept 25th. Reward accuracy!)
Thanks.
*I always preferred The Long Secret, as it took place on Long Island.