Self Publishing, Writing Now

Quick thoughts about *On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft* by Stephen King

Devoured this book.
Part one—CV—would be a good read for anyone, fans and the curious included. Shows of a strong sense of humor, and a real groundedness.

Part two “What Writing Is” leans towards the writer, but there is good stuff for Fans too. I don’t agree with at least one of his foundational points, but that matters less than one would imagine. Another idea I strongly resisted for a while, until what he meant became clearer, then I cottoned up to it. It’s an interesting view of writing, and there is much that one can take away from this. Plenty to leave, but that’s true of any book.

 

A Perfect Blindness, Personal Narrative, Self Publishing, Writing Now

Groovie Mann and What’s in the Wings
Hey there,
It has been a while.
Not because I’ve been hiding, or running about entertaining myself to death.
I’ve been working and will have announcements on that work soon.
(Two hints:
  • when the text gets prepared for uploading to Kindle Direct Publishing, the entire text must be reworked even if it’s already been published?
  • A tagline I’ve been playing with: An ordinary man lost in a world of magic. A fabled book. Legends will be forged.)
I also met one of the musicians whose band appears in A Perfect Blindness: Groovie Mann from My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult (America’s most dangerous cult). At a screening of Industrial Accident, the story of Wax Trax Records, which also plays a huge part in the novel. A must see.
Here’s a photo of me autographing the novel for Groovie Mann:
Signing APB for Groovie Mann
The Smile on Groovie Mann’s face says it all.
      You can get your own autographed copy of A Perfect Blindness too, you know.
Available on Amazon right here for $14.37 (plus shipping). Just pick W. L. Hunt as the seller (me you know). (Or if you have a copy, let me know, we’ll get you one too: ldarley4@gmail.com)
As always
Soon, I’m going to be going after more reviews, that includes by you, the readers. So, if you haven’t left a review on Amazon, Goodreads or Barnes and Noble, please go—it’s the most important thing after a good cover, and readers check that before they ever make it to the description.
If you happen to be any of those places, click helpful on the reviews you find helpful. It’s a quick, easy, free way to help A Perfect Blindness rise in the search results at Amazon. (You might need to click “see all 5 reviews” to get to them all.)
Thanks for reading,
W. Lance Hunt
And let me know what you think. Much obliged.
As for other tales of the way things might have been or could yet be: several pokers in the fire. Will be asking for your thoughts and input soon.
A Perfect Blindness, Personal Narrative, Self Publishing, Writing Now

Took Long Enough, pt 1: People Want the Familiar

Or: The Difference Between Being Told Something and Experiencing it. A note to myself.

Something clicked while I watched Ready Player One with my son. Finally.

A bit past midway of the movie, I caught myself thinking, “yeah, here’s the moment when she thinks he’s betrayed her, and it looks like it’s the end and that things are going to fall apart. Wonder how they’ll resolve this.”

Then, I recalled that I thought just about the same thing in Black Panther. And in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

The movie took me back into its world then, but on the walk home, I realized I could find examples of this from many other movies and books as well:

  • Hero and heroine who start off not liking each other (two heroes or heroines)
  • Eventually, they overcome this dislike
  • They join forces, many times with a dollop of the romantic
  • Then something happens. Many times it’s a misunderstanding, sometimes something beyond the characters’ control leaps between the pair, seemingly putting an end to the new team
  • Now all appears lost

But, this isn’t the Marquise de Sade or Baudrillard, so somehow, someway, something, almost always foreshadowed, will happen, and things will turn out positive. Not necessarily happy. But the bad guys will get defeated, and the pair with newly repaired differences head off to some future or another.

  • Separate, but with mutual respect.
  • Together as firm partners.
  • Or good friends.
  • Or lovers.
  • Or some combo.

If only in memory—heroes do die at the end sometimes. All depends on the flick or book. And the genre.

Fleshing out this truism as I walked home was an idea from an intensive copywriting course I recently completed. In the class, Bryan Cohen beat into us is that people crave the familiar. Therefore, you give it to them.

You write copy that fits genre expectations so someone reading that little bit of text will think, “Oh. This is the kind of book I’d like”, meaning the book will have the expected problems, solutions, etc. that the person likes to read about.

For example, in romance: Each person has an issue, and the question is can they overcome these to find love. It’s what Romance readers read romances for. The same in for any genre. Even literary fiction, which appears not genre by definition, but it always has someone whose life/livelihood is in jeopardy, and if only they find something in themselves will s/he save the day. †

Then these ideas jelled. What I’d superficially known became obvious. To me. At long last.

This is why people watch movies.  Or read books. Consume anything with a story in it:

To find what they crave, something satisfying to them. The kind of story they want to see or read.

Sure, different characters, places, plots, circumstances—different in the details, but fundamentally recognizable.

  • Will Joe and Sally finally find love?
  • Will Joe or Sally finally find it in his- or herself to do the right, the good thing, regardless of personal cost?

That doesn’t mean all heroes or heroines find or do the same thing, in the same way of course. If one is even passingly acquainted with Campbell’s Hero with A Thousand Faces,  the monomyth is familiar: the one great story, in which the details are merely costumes various functions dress in while describing this one basic story.

So, while the details and specifics of the plot of a story are (or should be) unique, it will have the expected, craved, problems and solutions/resolutions of its genre. If it doesn’t, it has little chance of being popular. A cult hit, perhaps, but generally not popular.

I’d known this intellectually. I’d read about it. I’d seen lists of what sells and what doesn’t. I know romance/erotica is the best selling genre.

But only when I was sitting in a movie and heard myself thinking in genre tropes did I actually understand what I knew. That romance/erotica is a best-selling genre because it delivers the needed fix to the reader.

Bottom line:

If it’s genre or sub-genre lit, it will have X, Y, and Z. If not, most readers/viewers won’t like it. And one thing people want, logical or not, is a positive ending *. Life is hard, mysterious, full of disappointments: Why would I spend my free time reading about unremitting misery and failure?

* Notice, not Happy, but positive. Even the hero dying in the end can be positive if they’ve accomplished something imporatnt with his or her life. Unrelenting dark fiction is out there I’m sure, but mostly with a small, cultish following.

Sure new genres do appear. Ones that actually work are freakishly rare.

And if you look at the numbers, take the outside view, books in established genres sell. Literary fiction as a “non-genre” continues to sell less and less. (Especially when the target audience is the author, or “people like me.”)

Now, about what writing what one wants to write vs. writing something to sell—I’m going to follow Jonathan’s lead, from A Perfect Blindness:

            “I don’t want to play between shifts,” Jonathan says. “I want playing to be my shifts. How I make my living. To be what I do. All the time. I don’t give a rat’s ass about art. Purity, selling out—those are just excuses masquerading as virtue for people who can’t make it. I’m done with ramen noodles.”

Back here in Brooklyn, the answer to the question I recently posed—what should I write next? Is that I’m going to write genre fiction. Fantasy. It’s what lit the fire in me to write in the first place. And genre fiction sells. (Fantasy and Scifi are the second best selling genre, it turns out.)

And frankly, I can’t stand answering questions about how a relatively expensive book of literary fiction by a first-time author is selling.

’cause it’s not. Not really.And understandably. For many reasons.

So, I lift my glass to Jonathan who saw this before I did. Art, purity or selling out be damned. (Kills me that I created him and WROTE THAT LINE—YEARS AGO!!!)

Next up from the writing studios of W. Lance Hunt: portal/high fantasy, with a dose of sci-fi. About a middle-aged man (shocking like me) who stumbles on a reality that exists just beyond our own. Magic. Physics. Adventure. It asks the question: what if you could live out your childhood dreams as a middle-aged man. Of being a hero. Saving the world. Being more than a number, a job title, a marital status and an address.

(†I’m explicitly excluding experimental fiction, the sole purpose of which is to defy expectations, which is in itself an expectation, but so very protean. And extra hard to sell for that very reason.)

Know someone who might like one of these stories? Post it or Forward this email to let them in on it.

To join more Adventures in the Interzone: excursions to the way things might have been or might yet be click here. 

 

Self Publishing

What to Work on Next

I need some help. Yours.

Because I keep finding myself saying “I hate everything” or “I’m sooooo unhappy right now,” as I sit at my computer or walk the empty hall of my apartment.

Why? I’m not writing anymore.

Yeah, sure, copywriting is writing. So are writing proposals, and this blog, and emails, and updates, and Tweets and FB posts. But this kind of writing merely needs to be done.

None of it is the kind of writing I want to do.

The kind that made me want to write in the first place, that I’m increasingly desperate to write: fiction. Telling tales of made up people living in alternate worlds, or sometimes alternate lives in our world. I want—no need—to be a guide in the Interzone—excursions to The Way Thing Might Have Been or Could Yet Be.

So an effort to right a foundering ship I’m asking for help.

Yours.

Right now.

Continue reading “What to Work on Next” →

A Perfect Blindness, Marketing, Self Publishing

Truth to Power Interview airs 4/5 @ 9 am

An interview with me, talking about A Perfect Blindness, how and why I wrote it, Chicago back in the day, and other assorted ideas related to writing, novels, and the nature of truth will air on Radio Free Brooklyn, Thursday, April 5th.

No automatic alt text available.

Vijay Ramanathan is with W Lance Hunt at Radio Free Brooklyn.

Author of A Perfect Blindness W Lance Hunt sat down with me and the result airs April 5 @ 9am on Radio Free Brooklynrfb.nyc/ttp

 

Now, my interview on WGNtv got bumped off because of Baseball. You see, Chicago has two teams with opening weeks: the Cub and White Socks, and well, an obscure chronicler of Chicago three decades ago isn’t quite the draw. BUT, and here is I told him I was planning on making a video of the same points, he asked me to let him know when it’s up and running. So, I might sneak past the baseball bump after all.

 

Thanks for reading, and hope to hear from you. Keep your eyes peeled for more.

 

—Lance

A Perfect Blindness, Marketing, Self Publishing

Squinting like Blondie

“Of course,” Scott says. “Your life as performance art.”

            The night only gets worse. Sean walks out as soon as he closed up his bass’s case and picked up its stand. Marsha demands we drop of her drum kit at her house and won’t stay. Breaking down with only two of us is a real bitch—especially lugging those W-bins with Scott.

Dropping off Marsha’s drum kit, Scott’s pissed in that crazy quiet way that makes me nervous, squinting like Blondie from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. He says nothing on the way back home.

            I know I fucked up and burned bridges. Yet what really cuts into me is that Amy didn’t deserve that.

            But what were you even doing there? You said you’d be working all night on whatever the hell project it was. I needed to talk to you. Alone.

            Now that’ll never happen.

A Perfect Blindness, DVD extra, Marketing, Self Publishing, Soundtrack

Mercurial Visions Memorabilia

When Scott and Jonathan founded Mercurial Visions with AnnMarie and Nancy, they had little more than hope and energy. Below is a collection of CD artwork, articles and the like from the four years they were together 1988-92, starting with:

the official home of Mercurial Visions, right through this link. 

Discography

From 1988, their Self-Titled EP “Mercurial Visions” (self-recorded and published)

Front Cover art and design by Chris
Mercurial Visions’ biggest hits so far.

From 1989, their breakout CD, Joie de Vivre, on Wax Trax! Records

Mercurial Visions first release on Wax Trax! frnt
Mercurial Visions first big hit “Joie de Vivre”

PRESS

Their first review, from the Chicago Reader 7/20/1988

See Them Before They Vanish

A Review of Joie de Vivre Chicago Tribune 1/18/1989

Joys of Love, Loss, and Clubs

More stuff in the offing.

Know someone who might like this? Post it or Forward this email to let them in on it.

Any thoughts or comments. I’d love to hear them

To join Adventures in the Interzone: excursions to the way things might have been or might yet be click here. 

A Perfect Blindness, DVD extra, Marketing, Self Publishing, Venue

Some of the Venues, Pt. 1

As more than one reviewer has commented that the level of description and attention to detail in A Perfect  Blindness makes it stand apart.

 

[…] Hunt successfully conjures the story’s time and a place in masterful detail.

An expansive historical novel that ably evokes its time and place.

—Kirkus Reviews

[…] packed with references to the streets of Chicago, popular and underground music, and an insider’s knowledge of the technical side of the life of a musician.

—Forward Clarion Reviews

The links below offer a sampling of scenes—all pre-smartphone and full of smoke—in which

     “[…] Hunt’s tireless, Jagermeister-fueled nightcrawlers give us a complete tour of North Side rock clubs in the ’80s—and of their own failings.”

—Blue Ink

 

A Perfect Blindness, Marketing, Personal Narrative, Self Publishing

Relentlessly Helping People Who Would Enjoy *A Perfect Blindness* Find It

There is a lot of advice for new authors. Books. Blogs. Newsletters. All overflowing with advice. A riot of tips, strategies, and essential to-dos. One of the most common is to blog. To be relentlessly helpful. To offer tips, strategies, and best practice to-dos for the potential audience for your book. To give it away as honey to attract the reader-bees to buy your book (or service).

Examples abound.

It makes sense.

I did it.

One thing most advice givers give is that a writer must watch the numbers: the likes, follows, people signing up for your mailing list, and ultimately, people buying your book to know what works, and what doesn’t.

I did this too.

A handful of likes, here and there, scattered followers on this or that post. Nary a book sold.

I dutifully put onto one side of a balance scale all the hours per week spent creating and distributing the content and on the other side the number of book sales (the end reason for doing this), as well as followers and likes on the other.

The scale immediately fell over to one side: it’s been a waste of time.

What gives?

After probing the nagging suspicion that most of this advice is given with non-fiction in mind, using nonfiction authors as the primary examples, with fiction as an afterthought at best, I was forced to reexamine this whole idea.

  • How can a fiction writer be relentlessly helpful?
  • What can fiction writers blog about to create content to give away, to stir up excitement for a book?
  • To get people interested in their fictional world?
  • To get people interested the author as the teller of tales?

After far many months of fruitless labor, I finally googled it.

(Don’t laugh that it took this long. Failure is a far greater motivator than success and an infinitely better teacher.)

To sum up the general thinking: unless you’re a literary star, or are a true expert in the same field as your fiction is, blogging is wasting time better spent on getting the rest of your platform in order, perfecting your sales copy, and working on outreach, especially with influencers and reviewers.

Huh, damn.

Sifting through further advice for fiction writers, I sought examples specifically for creators of things that don’t exist.

Only then did I come to realize that being helpful for a fiction writer is very different than for a non-fiction writer.

Some advice tries to twist the meaning of expertise into dealing with philosophical problems or life issues, but these contortions miss the real point.

Fiction writers don’t (typically) write to help people solve specific problems. The whole idea of being helpful needs to be flipped. [Social activist fiction is unique in this regard, and blogging about the issues in the book could help sell it, but still…]

What a fiction writer needs to do is be relentless in helping people who would in enjoy the book find it, and in helping those people who are reading it enjoy it more.

So my blog will cease being a blog in a traditional sense.

It will become a sandbox, a place for experimenting with ways to help people find the worlds I’ve build and once in that world, helping people get the most out of being there. Perhaps even enjoying it long after it’s finished.

And so that is what “One Candle in the Darkness” will shift to—a place to invite readers. Both those initiated into A Perfect Blindness’s world of the late 80s Chicago music scene, where we are all just misunderstood characters in the stories other people tell themselves, and those who haven’t yet discovered how much they would like it.

Welcome to The Interzone a space where I host jaunts to the way things could have been and offering glimpses at the way things still might be, places where people strive after dreams, fight back at disaster, struggle with demons in both themselves and others. Enjoy.

 

Know someone who might like this? Post it or Forward this email to let them in on it.

Any thoughts or comments. I’d love to hear them

To join Adventures in the Interzone: excursions to the way things might have been or might yet be click here. 

 

A Perfect Blindness, Games as Tools, Gamification, History of Science, Medical, Personal Narrative, psychology, science, Self Publishing

A Break to Gather Thoughts and Ask a Question

One Candle in the Darkness is taking a week off to collect thoughts, mostly from the people who venture here from time to time.

Since everyone has only a limited time to read, watch or listen, or to write what folks read, or to create what folks see or listen to I want to make sure the producer (me) is delivering what you the partakers wants:

I’ve embarked on deep dive into psychology as a way to move into science and the process of science more generally, which will set up a dive into agency and how games can explain what we see on the headlines.

In the past, I’ve posted about the process of self-publishing, and dabble in the process of writing long fiction. Even included a few updates on A Perfect Blindness the literary novel that was published back in April 2017. Almost a year now.

The most popular posts were about insights into self-publishing, with a few strong ones talking about depression being an unintended side effect of two seizure prophylactics I’ve taken.

What then would people most like to find here?

  • Updates on A Perfect Blindness?
  • DVD extras from A Perfect Blindness? (cut scenes, background notes, “interviews” with the main characters? More playlists?)
  • Sneak Peaks at other fiction I’m working on?
  • More nitty gritty on publishing?
  • Writing in general/Long fiction in particular?
  • More psych?
  • The dive into science (Which is more interesting and informative that you’d think)?
  • Agency and how games can explain the headlines?
  • Something completely different?

Please let me know in the comments. I don’t want to put up stuff here no one cares about. Wastes your time and mine both.

Next up (Still): Science From Burke to Khun Part 1 (How one gets from Witchcraft to Science)

Know someone who might like this? Post it or Forward this email to let them in on it.

To join Adventures in the Interzone: excursions to the more intriguing parts of a curious mind click here.

Medical, Personal Narrative, psychology

Better Living Through Chemistry: Notes from Chemically Induced Depression Part 6 of 7 (the Meanings of Nausea)

The unwelcomed journey back to the land of the damned wasn’t apparent at first.

Continue reading “Better Living Through Chemistry: Notes from Chemically Induced Depression Part 6 of 7 (the Meanings of Nausea)” →

Medical, Personal Narrative, psychology, science

Better Living Through Chemistry: Notes from Chemically Induced Depression Part 3 of 6 (Having to Think Slowly)

This pervasive, grinding ennui exhausted me.

It also challenged most of what I thought I knew about clinical depression, which I had studied while getting an undergraduate Psychology degree. I’d read about the exhaustion, the feelings of pointlessness, but had always conflated that with what I had personally experienced as feeling down, blue, bummed, hurt, let down, disappointed, fearful—yet my current state bore no semblance to any emotion I’d faced. To any emotion whatsoever.

Rather as I moved limply through the hours of my waking day, I felt nothing at all. As if emotion had been severed from me—all desire, all displeasure, and every shade of feeling in between. Continue reading “Better Living Through Chemistry: Notes from Chemically Induced Depression Part 3 of 6 (Having to Think Slowly)” →

Marketing, Self Publishing

Another book read

Write and Grow Rich: Secrets of Successful Authors and PublishersWrite and Grow Rich: Secrets of Successful Authors and Publishers by Alinka Rutkowska
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid advice from a variety of authors, including fiction, which is not exceptionally common. Slightly sales pitchy at times, but that is part of the performance of the book: this book and what people do in it (selling services) is how you make money as a writer. Some of the non-fiction advice isn’t especially useful, but definitely worth the time.

View all my reviews

 

Rather a provocative title, but with some solid advice from a variety of people.

 

A Perfect Blindness, Marketing, Self Publishing, Writing Now

Been Busy Doing Things That Aren’t Especially Exciting to Talk About

Popping up here, again, to show that I haven’t died. And to excuse myself by revealing the several irons I have in the fire. And playing with fire is what’s been keeping me quiet, hypnotize by the jumping flames. (Anyone who remembers me from Boy Scouts would know I’m a bit of a pyro.)

Okay so, I have been getting some things done, simply nothing that warrants an announcement—yet.

Such as?

Such as recoding A Perfect Blindness as an HTML file, by hand, while learning how to use CSS in various formats from Guido Henkles’ excellent book The Zen of eBook Formatting and simultaneously teaching myself all the new software required to do that.

But why would you want to recode all 129,000 words of a perfectly acceptable eBook already in multiple marketplaces? I hear rattling around inside various heads.

Actually, several reasons, including a certain masochistic streak painted down the middle of my life.

Mostly though, it boils down to flexibility, control, and not wanting to shell out yet more money for every small change in the text (mostly in the end matter after the story is over) and experiment in promotions, all of which is critical for success in digital marketplaces. That and creating a more eBook friendly version of the book which includes links and invitations in the very back of the book. Ebooks are based on HTML after all, and what better place to ask people to visit my site and join the mailing list then right after they finish a book they enjoyed. (People put down books they don’t enjoy.)

With this new version, I’ll also be able to take much greater advantage of Amazon’s huge marketplace by publishing the eBook myself through KDP: Kindle Direct Publishing. (iUniverse will continue publishing the soft cover version as needed.) Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, etc. won’t be forgotten. But Amazon is the biggest market, so there first.

Ultimately, I’m looking to relaunch it while laying the groundwork for a Fantasy series I’m also currently writing and bolstering me as a Writer. See, that was a capital-W.

(More on the specifics on these reasons later when I have the time for a broader survey of my delusion/brilliance.)

Just a couple of days ago, I wrapped up making sure all the single quotes and apostrophes go the right direction. As I said, hardly anything one announces. Currently, I’m tweaking the Table of Contents and inserting my author’s photo as well as figuring out what premium someone will get for forking over an email address through a new link in the back.

By the by, if anyone has a suggestion or three, I’m all ears.

Oh, and I’ve also written 54,000 + words of a fantasy novel, which will be the first in that series, with a working title of “The Book of Visions”.

An ordinary man lost in a world of magic. He holds the key to stopping a fabled book from engulfing two worlds in war: If he survives long enough to use it.

(I’m closing in on the end of act I now, with about 100K as the final word count.)

So, stay tuned for more, and seriously, if you have something you’d like to get from an author, specifically me, in exchange for giving up your email address, let me know.

Talk to you again in November. I’m hoping with a big announcement and perhaps more explanation about why I’m recoding a book from scratch. I’ve a few facts to look up, and I do hope they line up with my beliefs. Else, you’ll see someone change his mind in almost real time.

 

Words of Wisdom
(some found, some used, perhaps even a discarded illusion or other.)

 

“If you ever wonder why you are where you are in your life, go to a mirror. The answer is staring back at you.”

News Extras

Good News for Fans of Wax Trax! Records and their music, which does play a large role in A Perfect Blindness, being the label signing Mercurial Visions, the band the fortunes of which the books follows. It’s just been announced that the movie and soundtrack will both be available in April of next year. Read all about it:

Wax Trax! documentary ‘Industrial Accident’ due out on DVD in April — plus a soundtrack

 

 

A Perfect Blindness, Marketing, Self Publishing

An Interview and Refining a Description

On a recent trip to Chicago, I was interviewed by Moresby Press writer Greg Beaubien. He asked several great questions, which lead to the following conversation:

The Cost of Ambition and Deceiving Ourselves: Author W. Lance Hunt Discusses His Novel A Perfect Blindness

As part of the never-ending campaign to help readers who would enjoy reading A Perfect Blindness find it,  I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 3 weeks working on headlines, hooks and one-liners: those bits of short copy that entice someone with far too little time to spend a bit of it, reading a little more. Such like as the first line in a book description, or the bit of text in an advert, that little string of words that a reader glances at before deciding—”oh, that sounds promising” and then clicks on whatever to find out more.

In the case of A Perfect Blindness, this is the copy that will be found in the book (product) description on Amazon, iBook, & Barnes and Noble.

Not long ago, I updated what can be found online after realized that even I wasn’t excited reading it. What’s up now was that baby step to repair a wrecked launch. What will be up next week will be a leap forward.

So I ask you, would you read or recommend this book:

Jonathan has the talent. Scott has the drive. They’ve put it all on the line for their band. Now they discover the true price of everything they’ve had to sacrifice.

At the beginning of this striking novel, two longtime friends face the crushing realization that the fame and freedom they’ve been chasing for years might be nothing but a fantasy. Then on an unplanned trip to Chicago with its vibrant music scene, they abruptly abandon everything for that city and one last shot at making it.

In Hunt’s hands, this “sharply atmospheric” tale of struggling to matter and escape anonymity becomes something far greater: a dazzling dive into our deeply human need to connect with another person. The story first swings between Jonathan’s voice, whose world is full of passion, opportunity—and near impossible choices—and Scott’s voice, whose world turns on power, control—and avoiding his role in a close friend’s death. Soon joining this duet, Jennifer’s voice brings a world steeped in the imagery of TV, films and magazine advertising.

No other writer working today moves as effortlessly between such startlingly different points of view. Harnessing their contradictions, Hunt is finally able to demand answers to the questions of how it’s possible to create anything of beauty or even love when we are all just the misunderstood characters in the stories other people tell themselves.

As Jonathan, Scott, and Jennifer each struggle to find a personal answer to these questions, late 80s Chicago is resurrected in “masterful detail” and a band that readers will wish had existed comes vividly to life. In the end, it’s hopeful, tragic, and triumphant in turn, ultimately claiming its place as “a worthy […] addition to the literature of rock n’ roll’s agony and ecstasy”.

If you liked Ellis’s Rules of Attraction or Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet or just always wanted to play “live on stage, ” you’ll love this passionate ode to friendship, love, and the need to create.

Get A Perfect Blindness today and experience the madness and joy of rock’n’roll dreams.

This strikes much closer to what the book is really about: being a human trying to find some sort of connection, when who we really are hangs someplace between the stories, suspended in the contradictions.