Page 69: The Last Projector

Disclaimer: The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....

In this installment of Page 69, 

we put David James Keaton's The Last Projector to the test!

OK, David, set up page 69 for us. What are we about to read:

So I got curious/carried away, and checked page 69 on the paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions of The Last Projector. For the Kindle, since there's no actual page numbers, I sat there like an asshole and clicked the button counting to 69. And I was sort of surprised to find sex-related scenes on all three pages. To be fair, the hardcover and paperback were only one page apart, so it was a continuation of the same scene. But the Kindle’s page 69 was way different, and real raunchy. But if this gives the impression that this book is full of sex, that’s both right and wrong. The sex in this book is necessary because of the pornographic subplots, but those moment have a freaky insect-sex sorta vibe to them, hopefully. Which means I’m the only one who still finds them erotic. 

But page 69 of The Last Projector in the physical world (the paperback) turns out to be a scene from a chapter called “Doing Everything But Actually Doing It,” where this kid is trying to impress this girl by planning the murder of a police officer (which then gets downgraded to the kidnapping of the police officer’s dog). He’s not wrong to think the planning of the crime would have similar effects on his courtship as actually committing the crime (she’s impressed!), so he decides to keep planning as long as possible to see how far they'll both take it. But she’s been onto his bullshit from the get-go, so she decides to call his bluff and see if he’ll really do it, kill the cop or kidnap the K-9. But more important than all that, the plotting nets him a goodnight kiss, then later on when they park in the middle of the road, even more than that.

Page 69 in the digital world is a glimpse into the mind of the paramedic turned porno movie director and how frustrated he’s becoming when his “actors” show up on the set with trendy tattoos all over their bodies. It ruins the integrity of the scene, is his point, and I would definitely agree, not just because I wrote it, but because it’s pages like this one that clearly ruin the integrity of this book, as well. Victory!

What is The Last Projector about?

That’s a tough question, so I’ll resort to the publisher’s description, which I came up with anyway (I figure I bought myself a break on this question since I included double the amount of page 69’s, right? Right??). Anyhow, so this paramedic turned porn director (turned pretend paramedic) is uprooted from an ever-shifting '80s fantasy and his on-set tattoo battles with his cast when he discovers evidence of a crime that circles back through time to a far-reaching cover-up in the back of his ambulance. A mystery is revealed, surrounding three generations of women and the one secret they share, while two amateur terrorists’ unlikely love story rushes headlong toward a drive-in apocalypse. A drive-in gets messed up pretty bad, that much is certain. That’s how the book starts, at least. Weirder stuff happens later, like the director seems to be sprouting sexually-transmitted tattoos on his body (S.T.T.'s!), and there’s a serial rapist faking dog attacks to cover up his crimes, I think, who can remember. But that’s it in a nutshell. Lots of movies, lots of jokes, some disturbing set pieces that have brought me hate mail (another victory!), and some deconstructing of the perceived reality of film. Some authority bashing, too, which I’m addicted to.

Do you think these pages give our readers an accurate sense of what The Last Projector is about? Do they align themselves with the book’s overall theme?

Yes. Because of my sad attempt to exploit a loophole in this Page 69 game and get more than one page as a representation, I’d be a fool to deny it was worth doing. Both examples are definitely indicative of the balance between one-upmanship and goofy romance with the teenage characters, and the fevered brain of the porn director guy, whose “real” movie he’s filming on the side with his porn money (a reenactment of his life as a paramedic), eventually dominates the narrative and swallows the book with more and more itchy, infectious crazy as it heads for disaster. I very much hope you enjoy.

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PAGE 69:

THE LAST PROJECTOR

(paperback edition)

“Planning a crime isn’t a crime, right?” one of them asked.

They had decided to build a neck bomb, just for fun. Just keep working on their scheme as long as they could pay attention. It would be their first secret. 

“Uh, probably,” the other one answered, blowing on a slice of pizza. Then after a second, “No, I think it’s still a crime, dude.” 

“How many times have you started something but never finished that shit?” It was dark in the car, but this was definitely her asking.

“Every single time,” he smiled, teeth shining.

“Why is that such a relief?” she laughed. “We aren’t really going to do anything, are we?” 

He didn’t answer. 

“Hey, what was Bigbeat talking about with your driver's license picture anyway?” he asked. “You never explained that sufficiently.” 

“It's an old trick. You stick your tongue out when they take the picture and it accomplishes two things. First, it’s disrespectful to the cop who's reading it, and second, it makes your features distorted and less likely to be recognized if your records are ever pulled.”

“Do it right now,” he said.

“You do it.” 

He stuck his tongue out and goddamn if she didn't catch the end of it in her teeth like someone had thrown her a grape. Her mouth was salty, delicious. 

“Revenge is a dish best served with extra pepperoni,” she whispered, kissing him some more. Then she bit.

***

For the first time in his life, Billy stopped his car in the middle of the highway. It was 4:00 a.m., no cars in sight, with his headlights shining on roads stained red forever with the comet trails of roadkill.

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(Kindle edition)

Sure, back then there was always that one girl who grew out her bush to mythic proportions and turned it into Willie Nelson’s beard with some ink of him from the nose up, like a beatnik “Kilroy Was Here.” But other than those exceptions, tattoos in porn usually signaled “prison” to the viewer, which was tough on their concentration, as well as blood flow. 

But more ink had started creeping onto his set lately, and no one else seemed to show the slightest concern. Larry was starting to think it was that movie Tattoo with Kinsky and that Bond girl, whatever her name was, that might be to blame. It had just come out on video. Or maybe it was the colorful Ray Bradbury bibliography Carl was carrying on his back in the movie The Illustrated Man. But that flick had been out awhile. Maybe it was all those “Z’s” on Fletcher Christian’s neck in The Bounty? Or that glimpse of “death” on the toes of the Night Rider in Mad Max? And what about the proud eagle adorning Fenix’s chest in the brutal Santa Sangre? Or maybe it was Harry “The Story of Love and Hate” Powell’s knuckles in Night of the Hunter. Maybe Snake Plissken’s cobra in Escape from New York. Maybe it was that leering devil on Lee Umstetter’s groin in Weeds. Maybe it was Woody Woodpecker in Raising Arizona. Maybe it was that little fucker from Fantasy Island. 

Maybe…

Or maybe it had something to do with this line of work.

Maybe that’s what happens on a movie set like this, when you fuck so much without offspring, he wondered, eyes crawling from body to body, crew starting to worry. Rather than fertilize an egg, you’ll just hatch a chopper-riding Grim Reaper on your pectoral muscle instead.

He’d been sorta prepared for the skin doodle apocalypse today, however, because he already knew he’d be dealing with Head Breakfast’s tattoos on this shoot. “H.B.” as they called him was so named because of the Denny’s grand slam breakfast inked across the top of his bald cranium. Hey, what could you do? Motherfucker loved breakfast. His real fake name was Freddy, but how could you call him that when he had goddamn eggs over easy, sausage links, and a side of flapjacks forever staining his dome? And everybody agreed you didn’t bother asking him about it, as Larry made the mistake of doing more than once. Freddy had no explanation, except that he honest to God loved breakfast like no one had before or since.

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David James Keaton's work has appeared in over 50 publications. His first collection, FISH BITES COP! Stories to Bash Authorities (Comet Press), was named the 2013 Short Story Collection of the Year by This Is Horror and was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. His second collection of short fiction, Stealing Propeller Hats from the Dead (PMMP), recently received a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly, who said, “Decay, both existential and physical, has never looked so good.” He lives in California near where they filmed The Lost Boys.

Book Giveaway: Lost Everything

 Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.

It's the beginning of a new month and you know what that means..

Time to give away our July Author /  Reader Discussion novel!

We will be reading and discussing Lost Everything

with author Brain Francis Slattery

His publisher, Tor Books, has made 10 print copies available to residents of the US. 

(Sorry international folks!)

What it's about: 

In the not-distant-enough future, a man takes a boat trip up the Susquehanna River with his most trusted friend, intent on reuniting with his son. But the man is pursued by an army, and his own harrowing past; and the familiar American landscape has been savaged by war and climate change until it is nearly unrecognizable.

Lost Everything is a stunning novel about family and faith, what we are afraid may come to be, and how to wring hope from hopelessness. 

This giveaway will run through June 9th . 

Winners will be announced here and via email on June 10th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment here or in the giveaway thread over at TNBBC on goodreads. Remember, you must be a resident of the US to enter.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from July 18th - July 24th. Brian has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for him. 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred).

ONLY COMMENT ONCE. MULTIPLE COMMENTS DO NOT GAIN YOU ADDITIONAL CHANCES TO WIN.

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

GOOD LUCK!!!

Blog Tour: Beautiful Ape Girl Baby

Hey everyone! Grab the Lapels is smack in the middle of their blog tour for Heather Fowler's upcoming release Beautiful Ape Girl Baby, and we're thrilled to be a part of it! Today, we bring you the exciting journey of watching one's novel being turned into a short film....

“BEAUTIFUL APE GIRL BABY Goes Hollywood: 

Novel to Short Film: an Author’s Experience”

by Heather Fowler

There’s something amazingly special when your book, crafted in solitude, suddenly has actors filling the roles before the final, first copy gets released to the world. This was my experience watching a short film shoot for my forthcoming novel Beautiful Ape Girl Baby (Pink Narcissus Press, June 2016). I suppose my work has flirted with adaption to multi-media formats for a long time. A short story about a girl stalked by her relentless ex-boyfriend is currently pending adaption for another short film, a different short story set in the French Revolution is in process for adaptation to opera, and I’m now an author who moves into writing for film and stage with more serious intent.

But before these last two years, it was me, my computer, and the moving canvas of my lonely imagination. I never expected to actually watch a shoot any time soon. When I did this April, I realized that having professional actors breathe life into one’s characters is awe-inspiring, particularly when they embody characters I’ve worked with for a long time, heard speaking, and imagined thinking. While it’s true that many who read Beautiful Ape Girl Baby in early stages had remarked, sometimes heatedly, “This should be a movie!” I hardly imagined this suggestion would come to pass with such alacrity.

In fact, when I first asked for help with a making a two-minute book trailer several months ago, it was a sheepish request to a talented woman friend who already knew her way around film. I asked her to make something, anything I could put on my website and use as a book promotion tool. “Could you just do something to showcase the blurbs, Lauren?” I’d asked. “The book has great blurbs. Something with the book cover and maybe some stock music.” From Lauren, I’d expected a “no” since she’s very busy, or maybe hoped I could convince her to see my request as a quick project she could put together over a weekend. But from the moment Lauren Rachel Berman, head of Divergent Delusion Productions, finished reading the book, she had other ideas.

I still remember the shock and dazed sense of wonder I felt when she first replied to the trailer inquiry, “I really want to film the scene with her and the two cops. I can't get it out of my head.” By “her,” she meant the novel’s protagonist, named Beautiful. Lauren then said, “I keep playing around with how I could block it and cast it and pull it together…” In what seemed a blink to me, Lauren then requested tear sheets about the characters, put together a film adaptation for the scene she envisioned, and planned to cast it immediately. “I’ll send you the good audition reels,” she told me, pretty much assuring me I didn’t want to see bad ones.

The scene she wanted to film is from early in the book. On the tear sheet for Beautiful’s character went as follows:

“Details

 Female / Principal / Caucasian / 18 - 30

Description

Beautiful Ape Girl Baby is the heroine/anti-heroine character from Heather Fowler’s soon to release novel entitled Beautiful Ape Girl Baby. Innocent and worldly at once, she was raised on an estate by wealthy parents who hired friends to make her appearance as a strange, ape-like looking girl seem the epitome of female beauty. She is described as blue-eyed, walnut haired, and strong as a horse, with occasional bouts of lacked impulse control and violence. A confident woman, she enters every scene like she is the star. She perceives herself to be magnanimous and kind.

Scene description: In a confrontation with two somewhat rural policemen, Beautiful Ape Girl Baby at first wants to evade their arrest so she can continue on her clandestine mission to meet her mentor across the country and then cuffs them together and instead wants to provide them with co-counseling about the gay relationship she assumes she sees when one cop tries to protect the other.”

We lucked out and got several interesting actresses to send reels for this character, but while watching auditions for all the roles both at home in San Diego and with Lauren the week before the shoot in Los Angeles, I knew I’d been privileged to see something pretty rare for an author to have access to—the vision of seeing people engaging with fictive characters, acting out their dialogue multiple ways with multiple interpretations, and filming themselves doing so. I remember feeling completely fascinated by one audition for the role of Beautiful from a gorgeous Asian actress who showed a special talent of realistically kicking ass at the end of her audition reel. While we didn’t end up going with her since we were more delighted by the reel sent in by Marjan Elliott, who plays Beautiful in the film, it was great to see that the types of actresses attracted to this character were fierce as well as fascinating. I took no less pleasure in watching the men’s auditions for the cops.

But let’s talk shoot: April 10, 2016. That morning, surreal and floating with anticipation, I knew my book’s scene was about to become a visceral recording. I drove from Laguna Niguel to Santa Maria, California, early enough to hear the bird refrains ring louder than vehicular traffic. Before 8 a.m. I arrived on set to see actress Marjan Elliott get made up to play my novel’s leading lady.

The make-up artist, pictured above with Marjan Elliott, was the startlingly lovely and intuitive Denisse Moran. As you see from the photo, the make-up is light—it is after all, one of few scenes in which the protagonist, described as a beautiful ape woman, looks mostly human because the character has shaved her face to fit in.

Before the filming began, scripts were spread across tables. Soon thereafter, the actors playing the cops arrived, and the crew began to assemble. It was a divine moment when I realized my scene was about to happen.

I couldn’t have known, when I saw the device I affectionately refer to as “the clacker,” how intense it would be to watch take after take of this scene. But, an hour into the shoot, the sky let loose a torrent of rain and almost ruined it all. I kept thinking: “Oh no! They’d have to stop if this keeps up!” because I came to understand that while the production company could shoot in light rain, if the sky did not stop destroying the set, within a designated time frame, there’d soon be no shoot. You can see below the sky before the deluge.

It was particularly heartbreaking to think of the rain making all cease since the cop car, the stunt driver, boom microphone, multiple cameras, actors, director, more crew—so many people and things—had been gathered to make this happen on this day. But as the rain slashed down, as we ran for cover, my own review copy of the book in my hand had to be used as impromptu umbrella, and it seemed that destroyed review copy might be a harbinger for the rest of the day.

Still, even had we been unable to go on, I was aware that no matter what happened next, the first hour of the morning had been magical, and the beauty of seeing the early part of the filming was powerful. As we waited out the rain, the crew and I had the pleasure of watching Lauren Rachel Berman direct scripted reads and then off-book reads with the actors. In these moments, I saw segments of the story they hadn’t yet filmed. Again and again, the actors brought more to the read-throughs, engaging in playful exercises. There are no pictures of these private moments, but having seen them remains a favorite memory from the shoot.

Then, miraculously, what we’d seen as huge puddles and relentless rain transformed rapidly into warm blue skies. It was decided immediately: filming would recommence.

Throughout the segments shot next, Lauren Rachel Berman astounded me with the creative solutions she came up with for how to make the film true to the text.

Below you see the exchange where Marjan, a gorgeous woman with a delicate frame, as Beautiful manhandles the cop character called Vick, played by Jimmy Jones, III. While it’s easy to make a woman quite strong in a novel, to show it on film certainly needed Hollywood magic, showing me firsthand how superhuman strength in a book made the filming of such exchanges require intense conversation and blocking. You can also see that while the cameras make it appear that Vick is suspended in mid-air, a victim of Beautiful’s chokehold, to make it look effortless for Marjan, a step-ladder came into play.

Humorously, sometime into the filming of this scene, I remember being called upon as author to participate in a conversation that went something to the effect of, “How many hands does Beautiful have? In the book, she grabs a cop in a chokehold, holds a gun, catches a pair of cuffs, and while doing this, verbally perseverates on the difficulty of this situation. A little hard on an actress.” Well, the Beautiful in my mind has a thousand hands, I thought, amused, but clearly the one being filmed would need four or five to do things properly for the excerpt. Nonetheless, through some elegant decisions, Lauren made the scene work, adapting the script where we stood and getting the filming done. Again and again, the scenes were performed from different angles. Not only the cops, Jimmy Jones, III (Vick) and Dumont Darsey (Ed), but everyone affiliated worked hard in the hot sun. I have to say, it was exciting to see that the cops’ portrayals were just as intricate as Marjan’s.

Here’s Jimmy as Vick, hamming it up in a moment between takes with his gun and his megaphone. There’s something electric about a megaphone, isn’t there? I, too, wanted to play with it, though I never got the chance. That aside, at day’s end, I’d definitely say that while to watch the shoot of the heavy action segments with the cop car was fierce, it was the scenes shot later in the day in the ditch, where Beautiful acts as therapist to the cops, that revealed more of the true vulnerability and multi-faceted nature of the cops.

To see Marjan Elliott bring Beautiful to life and watch the cop actors perform all scenes Lauren adapted was completely special and otherworldly for me, but I felt equally indebted and impressed by the work of all the other generous people affiliated with the shoot who included: Jared Berman on the camera and acting as Director of Photography, Line Producer Jose Mendoza, Chase Rubin working as stunt driver, and Sam Caterisano as 1st Assistant Director and Field Mixer/Boom Operator. So, yes, writing a book may take an author a long time, working alone—but anywhere near Hollywood, film creation takes a proverbial village working together, and every hand participating in that action helps make the magic that creates the durable art.

For the sake of my work, for twelve hours, first in the pouring rain and then the blistering sun, the people who made this shoot happen did so with immaculate passion and professionalism, Lauren at the helm. That’s pretty humbling.

So, where’s everything now? The film is with an editor, soon to be scored, and we hope it will be made available for film festivals in the near future. It’s my hope that readers can get behind both the film and the novel, Beautiful Ape Girl Baby, when they see so much going on with it, and help our efforts reach a wider audience.

If anyone wants updates for when they can see the film or other announcements about my work, follow my website, Facebook, or Twitter. And help this wild literary book with a strong female protagonist get an audience that will only increase with the film’s release. 

The book is available for pre-order now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heather Fowler is a poet, a fiction writer, a playwright, and a novelist. She is the author of the forthcoming novel Beautiful Ape Girl Baby (June 2016 release) and the story collections Suspended Heart (2010), People with Holes (2012), This Time, While We're Awake (2013), and Elegantly Naked In My Sexy Mental Illness (2014). Fowler’s People with Holes was named a 2012 finalist for Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award in Short Fiction. Her fictive work has been made into fine art in several instances and her collaborative poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging, written with Meg Tuite and Michelle Reale, is the winner of the 2013 TWIN ANTLERS PRIZE FOR COLLABORATIVE POETRY released in December of 2014. Fowler has published stories and poems online and in print in the U.S., England, Australia, and India, and had work appear in such venues as PANK, Night Train, storyglossia, Surreal South, Feminist Studies, and more, as well as having been nominated for the storySouth Million Writers Award, Sundress Publications Best of the Net, and Pushcart Prizes. She is Poetry Editor at Corium Magazine. 

Andrez Bergen's Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Books & Booze challenges participating authors to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Today, Andrez Bergen hits the floor with a hell of a companion drink to his soon-to-be-released novel Black Sails, Disco Inferno:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Derby, which dates back to 1927 (therefore having a track record with the upper set by the '70s) is an International Bartenders Association Official Cocktail that traditionally combines gin, peach bitters and mint leaves.

Given that the Holt crime family in Black Sails, Disco Inferno are of Irish descent, and in fact based on a King of Ireland's clan in the medieval legend of Tristan and Iseult, they have their own variation of the Derby.

Gin is switched, of course, with Irish whiskey.

The Holt Derby, perfected by their family driver Lou Holden, is additionally made with a generous portion of limejuice alongside sweet vermouth and orange curaçao, to conjure up a drink that's dry, tart, peppery, subtly herbal, and a little out there.

Shaken, not stirred.



HOLT DERBY INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 oz (44 ml) Irish whiskey, preferably Midleton Barry Crockett Legacy
• 1/2 oz (15 ml) sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz (15 ml) orange curaçao (or Cointreau)
• 1/2 oz (15 ml) freshly squeezed lime juice 
• 2 dashes bitters
• 1/4 teaspoon grated corn poppy seed
• 4-inch (10-cm) lime twist for garnish


Combine whiskey, sweet vermouth, curaçao, limejuice, corn poppy seed, and bitters in a cocktail shaker. 
Fill with ice and shake until well chilled; Lou, from the novel, would recommend about 20 seconds. 
Then strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with that lime twist. 

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Andrez Bergen's 1970s crime/noir novel BLACK SAILS, DISCO INFERNO will be published on June 30, 2016. It's available for pre-order from the publishers Open Books.

Page 69: The Waves Burn Bright

Disclaimer: The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....

In this installment of Page 69, 

we put Iain Maloney's The Waves Burn Bright to the test!

OK, Iain, set up page 69 for us:

It's June 2013. Marcus Fraser, a survivor of the Piper Alpha disaster suffers from PTSD and is an alcoholic. He teaches part-time at the University of Aberdeen. It is Friday and he is in the pub contemplating the weekend ahead.

What is The Waves Burn Bright about?

On July 6^th 1988 the oil platform Piper Alpha exploded, killing 167 men. The Waves Burn Bright tells the story of how that disaster tears apart one family. Carrie Fraser is 16 when the disaster occurs, her father, Marcus, one of the survivors. The disaster, and Marcus’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and consequent alcoholism drives his wife and daughter away. Now, 25 years after the tragedy, Carrie, a renowned geologist, is returning to Aberdeen to deliver a controversial paper and, perhaps, reunite with her father.

Do you think this page gives our readers an accurate sense of what The Waves Burn Bright is about? Does it align itself the book’s overall theme?

In some ways this is a good introduction to Marcus’s character. The sentence, ‘He drank’ could almost be his epigraph. Marcus was always a drinker but his decision to self-medicate with alcohol rather than seek professional help to deal with his PTSD defines nearly three decades of his life. He mentions his hip: at the height of his drinking, at his lowest point, he falls down the stairs of his local and shatters his hip. His hospital stay begins the long process of rehabilitation. Always a keen mountaineer, Marcus is reduced to skirting foothills and watching from a distance.

            The Machar is a real bar in the heart of the University of Aberdeen campus which I regularly drank in as a student and still try to visit whenever I’m home. The bench he mentions at Loch Muick is also real and is dedicated to Mike Burnett, a helicopter pilot and family friend who died many years ago. Should auld acquaintance be forgot indeed.

            Not present at all here is Carrie, Marcus’s daughter and the main character. She is on her way though and here Marcus is stealing himself for a potential reunion.

            The sense of nostalgia I tried to capture in these paragraphs, the real comfort we all find in familiar objects, be it our favourite mug or shirt, or the way a glass feels against old scars, is very much what The Waves Burn Bright is about. The past and present exist in uneasy juxtaposition, defining themselves against each other and while habit and familiarity may be comforting, they are also dangerous and addictive. Like Stephen Dedalus, history is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.

Postscript: I think this ‘page 69’ theme is a fantastic idea and more writers should do it. I used to buy books on this premise, opening them at a random page, reading the first sentence and deciding based entirely on that. I gave up when, one day in the second-hand bookshop on the Spittal in Aberdeen, I opened Dead Fingers Talk by William Burroughs and encountered a sentence that will never be beaten: ‘There I was in the headwaters of a baboons asshole, completely out of KY.’ 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PAGE 69:

THE WAVES BURN BRIGHT

campus on such a beautiful day to such a beautiful goal, the little cottages, the idiosyncratic ancient walls and modern geometrical granite buildings, just a few steps beyond the bank and in through the black door.

He still missed the smell of smoke that used to envelop old bars like this. You could fit the Machar into a railway carriage. Seats and tables along the left wall, bar along the right, toilets and dartboard at the back. His corner was free, back to the wall, cash on the counter, ‘the usual Marcus?’ from Duncan the barman, big of heart and big of gut, University Rugby Club shirt and a mug of tea in his special mug, the white one with the black handle and U N T in black, the handle making the C. Pint handed over, correctly settled, head an exact three quarters of an inch, no fucking stupid harp etched onto the top. Quality craftsmanship. Almost seemed a shame to ruin the effect. Almost. The chill of the glass, the familiar curves spooned by the scars on his palms.
He drank.

Tomorrow they’d go out to Bennachie, him and Isobel. Part of the deal. She’d do the driving if he got some exercise. A decent walk, a pub lunch in Kemnay, back into town for whatever fun the evening held. They did that every weekend, a different walk but the same routine. Loch of Skene, Findhorn, Scolty sometimes, out to Braemar, Ballatar. Some proper hills, not that he could climb them, not with his hip, but the view was enough. Lochnagar. Loch Muick. He liked Loch Muick best. There was a bench there dedicated to a good friend from his oil days, a helicopter pilot. He liked to sit on the bench and have a tot from the flask. Remember Mike, toast him.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iain Maloney was born in Aberdeen and now lives in Japan where he teaches English and writes about travel, literature, and music. He studied English at the University of Aberdeen, has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow, and, as a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, has been published in journals and anthologies around the world. In 2013 he was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize. Following the success of his first novel First Time Solo, which was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize, his second novel Silma Hill was published in 2015, followed by The Waves Burn Bright in 2016. 

Thursday 1:17pm's Blog Tour

As Michael Landweber was celebrating the release of his latest novel Thursday 1:17pm earlier this month, we were hard at work building a kick-ass blog tour for it! And after a month of planning and creating content, we are super excited to share it all with you.

 We want to make sure you don't miss a single moment, 

so please click through to each site and follow us all week long!

Today, we've got duel stops at both Girl Who Reads, where Michael will be sharing an essay that delves into some of his more memorable characters' backstories, and Clash Magazine, where he's devised a (mostly) fake history of memorable moments that have taken place on Thursday's at 1:17pm.

On Tuesday, we've got back to back stops, too! Over at Alternating Current, Michael will be featuring a Shelfie, one of the coolest book shelf series out there. And he'll also be swinging by The Irresponsible Reader, where  he shares his favorite books about time. H.C. Newton even throws a couple of questions at him! 

Shelf Stalker hosts an interview of her own with Michael on Wednesday and then on Thursday, Michael stops by The Lovely Bookshelf to discuss genre labeling. 

And finally, Rainbow of Books brings it all to a close on Friday with a guest post from Michael on how he fell in love with writing. 

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Michael Landweber strikes the perfect balance between the humorous and the bittersweet in this novel, and we're so thrilled to be hosting this tour for him. If you haven't read the book yet, we urge you to check it out. You can read an excerpt of it or purchase it here. 

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Here's a little of what you can expect: 

Within its pages, Michael Landweber gives us an inside peek at what one teenager will do when time, and the world around him, suddenly stops dead in its tracks. 

Duck's mother just died after battling brain cancer. Trying to outrun his emotions, he's hightailing it up the street with REM blasting through his earbuds and doesn't hear the car trying to beat the light as he steps off the curb. But the driver never hits the breaks, and the impact never comes. Duck looks up - at a world that is suddenly, impossibly, frozen in place. 

As Duck attempts to interact with this world of human manikins in an attempt to understand what's happening - eating other peoples' food right off their plates, walking through raindrops that are suspended midfall, visiting his friends and father in the hopes that one of them might be moving too, and yes, ok, detouring through a girl's dormitory bathroom or two - he also takes some time to break the fourth wall and gives us, the reader, some tips on how to survive a frozen world should we ever find ourselves in his situation. 

As the only moving, living, human being, who would you go visit first? What wrongs might you attempt to right (or visa versa)? How would you pass the time in a world where time is no longer passing for anyone....? And how would you go about trying to get the world, and everyone in it, started back up again?