In the meantime, I stand here now — hat in hand — to ask for your help. For this self-published literary novel to have a chance at finding an audience, nothing will be more necessary or effective than word-of-mouth. Here are a number of things you can do that won’t cost you any more than the $2.99 it takes to grab your own copy of the book:
–Buy Yesterday Road (duh!). Amazon would be great, if you’re the Kindle type, since doing well there can make the book more visible than anywhere else.
In the meantime, I stand here now — hat in hand — to ask for your help. For this self-published literary novel to have a chance at finding an audience, nothing will be more necessary or effective than word-of-mouth. Here are a number of things you can do that won’t cost you any more than the $2.99 it takes to grab your own copy of the book:
–Buy Yesterday Road (duh!). Amazon would be great, if you’re the Kindle type, since doing well there can make the book more visible than anywhere else.
“I’d rather have all of it back, bad and good, if that’s what it takes to get the good.” So says Jack Peckham to Ida Peevey as she races Jack to, what she hopes, is his home and family, his longed-for destination. Memory is a major theme in this new novel by Kevin Brennan. Some people, like Ida, feel cursed by the bad things they remember. On the other extreme is Jack, whose memory seems to wipe clean every time he sleeps. In the middle is Joe Easterday, a young man with Down’s Syndrome, who tends to remember the good things. The lives of these three characters intersect and diverge on a journey that is at turns harrowing and hilarious.
Yesterday Road is a humorous, poignant, action-filled, meditative literary novel. To describe it with these adjectives makes me feel like I’m contradicting myself, but I’m not. Brennan has managed to write a novel that is as much a page-turner as a thoughtful exposition on memory. The main character, Jack, a man presumably in his 80s, finds himself lost and yet on a mission to “points East” where he expects to find his daughter. He manages his journey mainly through the kindness of strangers such as Joe, who he befriends on a train, and Ida, a middle-aged no-nonsense waitress, who winds up taking both men under her somewhat fragile wings.
Much of the humor in Yesterday Road resides in the scrapes that Jack (and later Joe) get into, the least of which is a carjacking by a former Mormon, cigarette smoking, whiskey swilling outlaw. Then there’s Jack’s penchant for collecting phrases that he likes the sound of: “Suit yourself” and “Tell me about it.” There’s plenty of deadpan humor in Yesterday Road, particularly coming from Jack, although not always intentionally. But underlying that humor is sadness because Jack really can’t remember much of anything, not even his last name. My heart ached for and with Jack as I went along on his journey to find, not just his family, but himself.
Brennan has enviable skill in character development. Every character got his or her due attention, but of course, the portrayals of Joe, Ida, and Jack are the ones that will stay with you long after you finish the novel. Brennan writes with particular empathy about these three people: Joe, with his Down Syndrome, at once a child and yet capable of independence; Ida, with her regrets and her obligations that impede her efforts to help Jack and Joe, although she manages to do all that she reasonably can; and Jack, with his ever-fading memory, his tenuous grasp of reality, his warmth, his kindness.
I have only one criticism of the novel: I thought Ida Peevey was introduced too hurriedly. It was almost as if Joe and Jack had just stepped into the diner when Ida began to assume control over their destinies. It felt abrupt and not quite believable until a bit time later in the novel. Ida has her reasons for feeling protective toward Jack and particularly toward Joe, but I didn’t at first understand her willingness to risk her job just to help them. This isn’t a major flaw by any means, and Brennan does satisfy the reader soon enough when more of Ida’s life is revealed.
I am going to rate this novel as 5 stars, which something I rarely do. Simply, I loved Yesterday Road. It wasn’t just a funny story, or poignant story. It wasn’t just a great story. It was a story that made me think: about the role of memory in how we know ourselves; about how we perceive others who seem different; about whether we can or would help a lost soul, or just leave them to flounder.
So, do yourself a favor and purchase a copy of Kevin Brennan’s Yesterday Road. Reading the novel is a wonderful experience.
It’s not every day I can say tomorrow I have a book releasing. It’s not as if I write a book every day. That’d make me one fast writer, for sure. It would also make me an incredible genius. Believe me, as much as I’d like to punch myself in the arm, no way would I consider myself an incredible genius. Not by a long shot.
For instance, I mess up directions whenever I go anywhere with my GPS. Somehow, the voice-assist stating, “800 meters, turn right” sets off a chain reaction in my brain that propels me to want to take the next right turn instead. Even if there’s 400 meters remaining for the turn. Also, I sometimes put on two different socks. But maybe you can forgive me in that respect since I do wake up at 5:00 A.M., and different shades of blue all look the same…
Here is the Sixteenth installment of Ten Top Lists of What Not to Do by Marie Ann Bailey of 1WriteWay at http://1writeway.com and John W. Howell of Fiction Favorites at http://johnwhowell.com. These lists are simu-published on our blogs each Monday. We hope you enjoy. This list was put together at the request of Minion Leader Ionia Martin at http://readfulthingsblog.com.
10. When at the library, refrain from using the stacks in the archived periodicals section to conduct an amorous liaison. While you may think that few if any people browse those stacks, chances are there will be at least one lonely doctoral student who will trip over you while you are in flagrante delicto with the potential of causing all of you great distress.
9. When at the library, do not try to sneak in food and drink from anywhere, much less a fast food restaurant. Libraries prohibit food and drink as it is, but the aroma (or odor) of greasy burgers and fries will likely draw a size-able crowd of children to your table, all of whom will want a bite of your lunch or, if gone, you.
8. When at the library, do not try the patience of the reference librarian by asking questions like, “So, who first discovered drinking milk from a cow?” At best, the librarian will simply point you to the stacks on animal husbandry. At worst, the librarian will pull out a cattle prod and demonstrate its use … on you.
7. When at the library, do not think it is okay to talk loudly on your cellphone just because you found a “quiet” corner away from other patrons. Sound carries and it is the mission of every librarian to ensure a quiet place for study. You may get to finish your call before they find you, but it will be the last call you ever make in that library once the librarians are done with you and possibly your firstborn as well.
6. When at the library, do not use library staff as free babysitters. No matter how adorable your children might be, it is not the purpose nor necessarily the desire for librarians to break up squabbles between 3-year-old twins, assist your two-year-old to the toilet for a lesson in potty training, or chase after the 5-year-old boy who insists on running through the stacks to burn off the high sugary breakfast you gave him that morning. The next time you show up to drop off your kids, the librarians might (literally) rope you into a game of dancing around the May Pole, with you as the pole.
5. When at the library, do not commandeer the computers in the children’s section. Just because these interactive computer games weren’t available when you were young (much less computers) doesn’t mean that you can push kids out of their chairs and take over the computer. At best, the children will sulkily go away to another room. At worst, the children will return with both parents (one of whom is a professional wrestler) and the head librarian in tow and you will quickly find yourself bouncing down the library steps on your bum.
4. When at the library, do not think anyone would think it is funny or entertaining for you to take every copy of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and put them alongside The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Calculus, the Bible, and Mastering the Art of French Eating. If you are caught by a librarian, you will likely wind up having to unstack and restack the Fiction section fifty times for penance, or, worse, an embarrassing request for a date.
3. When at the library, do not return DVDs or CDs without first checking and cleaning them if necessary. It would only be a matter of time before the librarians would figure it out that it is you returning DVDs and CDs after you’ve used them to play Frisbee with your cats or as coasters at your Saturday Margarita fest. Once you’re found out, you’ll likely be sent to the basement where they will make you clean every DVD and CD in their collection, as well as rewind every cassette and video tape.
2. When at the library, do not drop off your soiled and smelly paperbacks and magazines as donations. Before long, the library patrons will associate the odd cat-wizz smell coming from the donations bin with the same smell that consistently comes from your shoes. (Dear kitties love the warmth of your shoes and they seem to hold a lot.) At best, they will have security bar you from dropping off your donations before you even enter the door. At worst, you will be forced to clean each and every one of your donations until their smell no longer causes people to wrinkle their noses and start sneezing.
1. When at the library, do not stack towers of books on a table, peruse a few of them, and then just walk away. It may be the librarian’s (low-paying) job to return books to the stacks, but to horde books without any concern to the other patrons will cause you to fall into disfavor among the librarians. At best, they will simply shoot you nasty looks as they retrieve your tower of books. At worst, they will make a wall of said books and bury you behind it along with the convicted felon doing community service.
It’s Oscar Wilde’s birthday today – he was born on 16 October 1854 – so in honour of this, we’ve compiled some of our favourite anecdotes featuring the great author and wit. Wilde is probably known for his conversation as much as for his literary works. Here are some of the funniest and most thought-provoking stories featuring the man who, as well as being a great wit, was also often rather wise, too (and as the etymologies of the words suggest, the two are not unrelated).
The most famous anecdote involving Wilde concerns his arrival in the United States in the 1880s, when he was already a known figure in England – part of the reason for his trip to America was to promote the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Patience, which mocked the kind of dandy aesthete embodied by Wilde – but he was known for his flamboyant behaviour…
I’m very excited to announce that Curiosity, my second novel, is now available on lulu.com as a paperback POD or as an ebook. The link to learn more, and purchase if you wish, is my lulu.com author spotlight at:
As I’ve blogged about before, Curiosityis very different from my first novel, The Seed. The first novel was a passionate, heavy, introspective, character driven dark romance. Curiosity is lighter, though the humor is dark. It’s a satire of aspects of our modern media age.
Curiosity tells the story of a (somewhat) benign sociopath – Peter Graham – who believes the world has already ended and no-one noticed. He believes at the moment the world dissolved into the current state of chaos and meaninglessness, everyone had one essential characteristic remaining to them. His is curiosity. And his curiosity drives him to do something which inadvertently makes him one of…
So, a long time ago I featured a very talented blogger as my blogger of the week, but his blog (S) have grown since then and I think it’s time I give him another shout out. If any of you have managed to miss Mr. Green Embers and his multiple great blogs, here is your chance to get to know him.
So Mr. Green:
Here is a poem devoted to you mostly about all the great things you do Like making us headers that fit with our style and making us laugh until tears fill our eyes
Your main blog is great, so much fun for me you can find that blog here–with a splash of C#
We also appreciate the reviews that you do tech-stuff and movies and books to read too! Your thoughts and opinions and your invites to share no better place to get info…
Marie at 1 Write Way 