Booman People.  Please meet my novel.  Novel, the Booman People.

[An awkward silence falls between the potential readers and the unassuming novel.  Cricket song rises from the relative peace of a pastoral night.  Fade to black.]

More about Direct Actions after the flip (if you’ll join me).
Honestly.  I’ve got writer’s block.  I’ve been wanting to introduce you all to my novel for the longest time.  And now that the day is finally here, I am at a loss for words.  I’ve been staring at a blank “Diary Box” for an hour, having deleted several horrifying introductions.  But now that we’re here.

Where to start?  Where to start?

Let me start by telling you that I expect the novel to be available for purchase at the Booman Store in the very near future.  For those of you who don’t know this personally, BooMan is an incredibly generous host, and a genuinely kind person.  Through his generosity (at one point, he offered to put the novel up with no profit margin for his own efforts) I think that the Booman Store will offer the book (including shipping) at the lowest price of any outlet.  Fuck Wal-Mart.

Don’t get me wrong.  There were unusual aspects to this negotiation.  I’m no capitalist, but are there always clauses in contracts that require one party to be called by the codename “Turning Aspen?”  Is it unusual at all for a stipulation that a member of the supply chain be plied with evenings of beer drinking and debauchery?  I might just like this thing they call “capitalism.”  But the bottom line — I am happy to say my book will be available at the Boo Store.  And I hope (this is no paid endorsement) that if you consider buying the book here, and you have the means, you also consider buying some of the other cool merchandise.  I can say definitively that the t-shirts are attractive to a certain class of post-middle aged men who tell stories like Mark Twain.

Okay.  Back to the book.

Let me give you the blurb from the jacket, so you know a little bit about it.

Tired of selling out his principles as a corporate attorney for a silk-stocking Detroit law firm, Jeremy Jefferson seeks a change of venue as a public defender in rural Michigan.  But the peace and quiet of small town practice is shattered when Jeremy is assigned to defend Zeb Radamacher, a high school anarchist charged with eco-terrorism for firebombing a local superstore development.  As the governor’s office uses Zeb’s case to politicize terrorism and Zeb’s supporters are bent on starting a small revolution – conservative prosecutors, judges and jurors are the least of Jeremy’s worries.  In the fearful atmosphere of post-9/11 America, Jeremy’s own life and liberty may be on the line.

It is hard to sum up a novel (that once, in pre-editing days, rivaled War and Peace in length) in less than 125 words.  But that is a good start.

The book is John Grisham meets Noam Chomsky.  It is Scott Turow meets the anti-Ayn Rand.  It is John Voelker meets Carl Hiassen.  And I am ashamed to say, there may even be a touch of Jackie Collins (a very, very modest touch — let’s not turn the post-diary press conference into an episode of Desperate Housewives).  And it has a message, wrapped in commercial tinfoil, that I would like the entire world to hear.

If I thought the novel was like crack cocaine, I might give you a taste in hopes that, uh, wait a minute.  There’s an idea.  Let me share some snippets from the novel in these days while we wait for (indictments) it to become available for order at the Boo Store.

Here is a piece I liked.  It is not overly representative of the book as a whole — but then again, maybe it is.  It is from a scene where the main character, Jeremy Jefferson, is returning from court, pondering the mood of the country as he considers defending a terrorist.

He absorbed the public sense of fear, anger and bewilderment from looks and glances; from snippets of conversation overheard; from standing in line at the market watching fellow consumers; from talking with families of the criminals he represented. The general sense of loathing that had settled on people since 9/11 was a narrative that had been spelled out on the evening news and on cable television. It was a narrative played out on network shows, rushed to production, with plots focused on policemen, firemen and CIA agents fervently protecting the security of the homeland.

The entire community was gripped with fear – fear that the world had changed and was now unpredictable. Fear that, at any moment, a bomb might explode in the very center of Milton. Fear that a bacteriological agent might run rampant through the county. Fear that the food and water supply might be contaminated by radiation. A xenophobic fear that made a suspect of anyone whose skin shaded to the color of caramel or olive. A nationalistic fear that saw flags fly, not just on the Fourth of July, but on every day of the year, in a futile effort to make life seem normal again.

Jeremy’s own sense of unease was the polar opposite of what he had observed in the public at large. His unrest was caused not by the downing of the Twin Towers, but by the American reaction to the event; by people being warned to watch what they said in times of terror; by the xenophobia and nationalism that was not only rampant, but fashionable; by a first war in Afghanistan that was loved like a child, and a second in Iraq that was approved by a mass suspension of disbelief; by detentions of citizens at foreign prisons without charges or lawyers or even access to courts; and by the willingness of those around him to sacrifice their own liberties to be saved from a threat level of red, orange or amber.

I know.  It is not crack cocaine.  But you know.  It reminds me of a song.  “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.  You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow.”

[Shudder.]  Wow.  Getting side tracked.

So to summarize:

  • Book coming out soon at Boo Store.
  • I’ll give you exact date when I get it.
  • Book now available at publisher site (but wait for the Boo Store)
  • Book will be available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, and perhaps Powells.  Probably 30-45 more days.

I can answer your specific questions at the post introduction press conference, which will take place in the comment section below.  🙂