Something I never thought I would ever get to say, this is the eve before my very first (and probably only) book reading. I would be lying if I said that I am feeling nonchalant or confident about it. Given the current pandemic, a lot of writers/musicians/artists/creators are left to their own devices regarding how they are promoting their work and trying to reach out to their respective audiences. Prior to the publication of this novel, I had zero interest in going back to social media due to my apprehension about the polarizing climate I was expecting to confront. Fortunately, I have been privileged to connect with some amazing people who have been engaging with me and having some amazing conversations.
That is what I am hoping for tomorrow night. To treat it less like something I should get stage fright about, or something that should be treated as daunting due to my lack of experience with ZOOM or Instagram Live but as a rare and fleeting opportunity to talk to people about a piece of writing that I never thought would ever come to fruition. I have not obsessively prepared for it which makes me think I am on the verge of an absolute disaster, but frankly? I want whatever happens tomorrow to manifest organically. I hate reading anything in front of people, honestly that is the part (well, in addition to operating ZOOM on my own) that I am most afraid of. However, I methodically picked a passage that means the most to me and I am hoping it will induce fewer panic attacks and more of a conviction to have it spoken out loud. I do plan to wear a costume, and I hope others will do the same. Its not mandatory, but it was another methodical effort to make this feel more fun and less like a scary endeavor in trying to reach out to readers who may or may not show up. So, here we are. The link will follow the end of this little stream of consciousness. I am looking forward to anyone showing up, and hopefully showing up with questions or something they would like to talk about having read or actively reading the book. It is going to a very innocuous evening, but in my head, it still feels like I am playing my first concert at TD Garden. I do not say that because I am vain, I say that because I am also excited to be able to do this. I am horrified, but also horrified with a conviction to just let things fall into place. I hope I see and hear from you tomorrow. With everything going on, it would be such a thrill. Stay safe everyone, and hopefully I will see youtomorrow!
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It all started with a newsletter…
My wife and I woke up this morning to her reading Mrs. Luti’s newsletter to all the parents of the children who go to her school. She shared a link to my book and talked about the reading I am doing this Friday on ZOOM. My wife and I don’t get a ton of opportunities to talk in between her work schedule and our kids, so she was SO proud to see that Mrs. Luti had wanted to promote the book. “You’re dedicating your reading to James?” I also didn’t get the chance to tell her that I wanted to do something special for the Luti family, as small of a gesture as it probably is…but yes, I want to dedicate the evening to his memory and to address a few issues regarding the stigma of mental illness and talk about the families before I am off to the races. Look, this novel deals so heavily with mental illness and the detriment of ignoring it that I saw an opportunity to speak up for James as someone who has survived and is still trying to navigate his way through mental illness. It would be irresponsible of me to have an opportunity to be heard, and not acknowledge the amazing people and families who are coping with loss daily. So, my wife clicked on the Barnes and Noble link I provided and saw that the Saugus location was listing physical copies on hand. My wife being my wife, sent me out on an assignment to track down these copies and send her pictures.
What happened next is simply….I wheeled the stroller over to the magazine section with the hope of finding a depressed nineteen year old with a long mop of hair who was too poor to afford magazines to help him get published so he was scribbling addresses in a notebook and looking over his shoulder like he was committing a crime. I wanted to find that nineteen-year-old and scream at him…GET UP! WALK OVER TO THE FICTION SECITON! EDDIE! YOU DID IT…GO OVER THERE AND LOOK AT IT! Instead, I had my two boys and then another thought entered my head. This is all they know. At one and three? I am not the father who wants to be an author or is struggling to get through his book…. they can fucking hold it. We are in the store I spent so much time in as a young man trying to figure out how to become an author…and my name is on their shelves.
I was checking out (had to get Dylan some prizes for being so good) when I joked about the surreal nature of the visit to the clerk who immediately wanted me to track down her manager so I could sign the books they had on hand. I was awkward and uncomfortable about the idea, but then I looked at my sons and thought…don’t be awkward, this is not a walk out of here avoiding the situation moment, this is you’re kids are fucking watching you. I approached the manager, she asked if I knew where the books were, and I brought them to her. She handed me a sharpie and had “signed copy” stickers ready to go. Both women were so congenial, so supportive, and absolute sweethearts to the nervous disheveled father of two in the Bret Hart hoodie. I didn’t feel like I had made it, I felt like I was again, doing something bad. I was scribbling in their merchandise. When I got to the car and recorded the video on Instagram…I couldn’t help but notice my kids again and think…wait, this is normal to them. I grew up seeing the sadness and the unmitigated sense of failure of someone who wanted to write a book and sabotaged herself every chance she had. My sons are growing up with me bringing them into bookstores and being asked to sign my name. That is the greatest feeling about this whole experience to date…to my sons? I am not someone trying, I am not someone failing, I am. I am a writer. I walked into that store today, haunted by the specters of pain, rejection, sadness, destitution, and just really bad memories of how hard I was trying and getting nowhere both creatively and personally…and I walked out with my babies, who know that I am a daddy…and a writer. I walked out of a Barnes and Noble today a published author. I can’t wrap my head around that.
This is my son...holding a copy of my book in a Barnes & Noble, that I later signed because the sweetheart clerk encouraged me to seek out her manager and talk about doing so. He saw that today. That is something my son saw me do today. The buck toothed, crooked feet, creepy Kurt Cobain kid who Mrs. V. tortured in 4th and 5th grade took his babies to one of the biggest book chains today to find his book and was told he should sign it by the staff. If it gets better than that? Then I am not ready for it because I could barely handle what happened today. What I am is what I am...and to my kids? That's a dada and a guy who signs books.
One of the bigger aspects about this book (for me) is that I hope to use it as an opportunity to create conversation among readers, or anyone who invests the time in its content and its characters. Because I now find myself with a platform (albeit, a diminutive one) I really want to use it to bring awareness to bigger issues or causes. That story deals so heavily with mental illness, and what a toxic and detrimental role stigma plays in that. I was thinking about how much my son's teacher has done for both my son and my family, that I really wanted to do something for her family. We have only known each other such a short time, but ALL the progress she has made with my son and all the support her whole family has shown me and this book? I felt that I needed to return the favor.
While "Nothing to Get Nostalgic About," is MY story...there are so many people out there (families, survivors, victims, etc) who have their own stories. On Friday I am hosting a virtual book reading/Q&A for the book, and I decided that if anyone shows up? I'd like to also share James' story and the story of his remarkable family. After the tragic passing of their teenage son, the Luti's launched the JL11 Fund as a cathartic way to deal with his death but also to reach out and offer support and resources to other families affected by suicide and depression. Because of COVID, organizations like JL11 and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention were unable to host their annual walks for suicide prevention and awareness. You have know idea what these walks mean for the survivors of lost ones who succumbed to suicide and even those who survived suicide...this is the ONE time a year they get to REALLY heal, and address the specter of suicide that lingers on their minds every year. Because of COVID, SO many people lost this one day a year where they can truly come together and heal as a community. Mrs Luti and her family also host their own walk for their son's friends and everyone who loved him so much. They were also unable to host a gathering this year. While its not going to be a big event, hell...I will be lucky to call it modest, I really wanted to provide an opportunity for the Luti's to get their story out there and work through the trauma of James' death while also having the chance to reach out to others. Friday night, I will be dedicating my reading to James and his amazing family. Please, if you have the time and the resources go over to JL11 Fund and read THEIR story. If you can contribute even a small donation? I know it would mean the world to them. They deserve it, for all the miracles they continue to create for families like my own. Mrs. Luti goes above and beyond for her students, and she does this with the heaviest of hearts over her baby. If there is any way I can try to promote her mission as an educator and improve the quality of their lives while dealing with the loss of their son? I would give or do anything. This coming Friday, October 30th at 7 p.m. on ZOOM and Instagram Live. I will read a passage from the book, and tell you stories behind the book and answer any questions you might have. Hopefully I can also help this family out as they have done so much for my own. If you're around? Check it out. Wear a costume. Donate if you can. Most importantly? Have fun. I dropped off my oldest son at his school today when his teacher's daughter (she also teachers at the school) told me that she had started reading the book and was really enjoying it. Her mother then excitedly told me that her book club were all super gripped, one of them even told her that my writing style was similar to Neil Gaiman which was a really nice compliment to hear. After twenty-four hours without a working phone, I was really shocked to see that I had been tagged in two posts about it. Its really exciting to read about people's reactions to the story, and hopefully a lot of them will show up this time next Friday for the ZOOM reading/Q&A. I can't begin to emphasize how flattered and honored it has been for people to give me personal shout outs on their pages, and to hear that they have been sharing this book with their friends/book groups. I really hope you all come out, I am making this available both via ZOOM (figure this will be easier for questions) and Instagram live (for those who are a little curious) and I really hope those of you who join have lots of questions! That's honestly the part I am looking forward to the most, wondering what people would love to know about the story.
So there it is, Next Friday, October 30th at 7 p.m. on ZOOM (I will make the link available on Thursday) and Instagram live. Follow me @eddiebrophywriter and we'll be off to the races! What happens when the story is over? The fictional one at least. The living ones, the people who inspired the narrative…the ones still with us. They’re still trying to figure it out. A few people have asked me, is there a Nothing to Get Nostalgic About 2? No. There isn’t. In the world I created, I left it up to the readers to determine what becomes of those who survived it. In real life? The one’s who survived it? We’re still trying to figure it out.
I have been without a phone since nine in the morning (I dropped it in the toilet accidentally last night, then got mad and threw it and subsequently REALLY ruined it after growing frustrated with it) and all I am left with are my thoughts and a lot of throwback radio. When did we collectively decide that the only music worth hearing had to be twenty, thirty years behind us? Eddie Van Halen is dead, but it feels like people buried more than an innovative virtuoso. The radio made me so depressed today, its like the only good thing is still behind us. What a shitty narrative for this pandemic. Everyone is still searching for what was before it, no one can even fathom a future after it. I am so sick of feeling like the best things about life are behind me. I can’t blame anyone, I guess that’s just how this administration and its cult have propagated the idea of a better future. Before I lost my phone? I was having amazing texts with people I barely knew and loved my whole life about what a gift time is. I am not ready to give up. I still think are best days are ahead of us, I must. I have two gorgeous boys who are helping me grow up and figure this stuff out. I am a week away from talking to myself or a very modest few who want to hear me talk via ZOOM about this story. I tried to kill myself a lot. After every attempt, I woke up wondering what was stopping me from just doing me in. I became angrier and angrier, why the fuck can’t I just die? I have nothing keeping me here. Now I have Dylan and Ryder. The world has to keep evolving and I have to keep getting better for them…they deserve it. Why do they deserve to have everything that was robbed from me? Because when I get manic, upset, frustrated, furious, and work myself into a frenzy, they still love me after. They aren’t afraid of me or my illness, in fact my oldest so much empathy today it is still making me cry. “Dada, please don’t get so angry that you feel that way again.” This was after I beat up a laundry basket and ruined my phone. “Dada, it’s okay.” How does he know to talk like that? Please do not ruin inanimate objects you need and have a headache dealing with later? The poor kid was trying to poop and I went nuts on my phone. I hate feeling like I have no control over my life. I hate feeling so helpless and so useless. I hate even more that I was so furious with my phone because it’s the only thing that makes me feel less lonely than I do every day. I hate that with two gorgeous little boys and a wife…I still need to feel less lonely. When am I going to stop feeling like that lonely little kid? When am I going to let go of the anger of being that kid? I love my children so much; I don’t want them to see me so lonely or afraid. When is the past going to stop hurting all the time? I don’t want to live in a world of throwback channels, I want to watch them grow up and embrace their new culture and sound. Today wasn’t about my phone. The radio. I am scared that what happened to me as a kid is always going to obscure what they do. I know it won’t, I am still afraid it might. I am excited for the future because of them. They deserve it. When the fuck am I just going to stop hurting that I didn’t get the future I hope like hell they know they deserve? I finally got the mixer up and running today on the laptop. I even started the audiobook version that my wife keeps badgering me about. I know she is right, it is the most realistic next step. I have no idea what I'm doing, so even if I successfully finish it? What the hell am I going to do with it? Its a shame, I used to podcast quite a bit in my early twenties and I never had the equipment like I do now. I started entertaining the idea of scrapping an audio book entirely and doing a limited run podcast where I pick out specific passages from the book and extrapolate where they came from...I even like the idea of adding in different sound effects and maybe getting the help of others to play the characters and recite their lines. All I know, is that this is the idea stage of everything. I just don't want to get stuck in trying to promote this thing. I've stated before, I'd love to start writing and submitting poems again and I do have another manuscript I had planned to write after I finished Nostalgic back in 2018. I have to keep reminding myself that there is no rush. This book took three years to come to fruition.
I want to do what I never do, I want to be present for once rather than dwelling ten years ago or freaking out about what I should be doing ten years from now. My old radio mentor and very favorite human being Mike had messaged me on Instagram today to tell me he finally got his copy in the mail. He was (as always) very supportive and told me that he thinks I did something very special. I don't know exactly what that is, but I hope its something that can resonate with others. I was in a really awful place from 2000 until the end of summer 2018. By 2018, I was as full-time stay at home parent to my oldest and I finally managed to finish my fifth manuscript. This one was different, this was by far the most vulnerable I had been in writing even more so than the poems I had published. It was also largely motivated by what my graduate poetry professor Melanie Faith was getting out of me for my thesis work. At the time, I stopped talking to my two older sisters. I just needed to figure out what was making me so awful about being me and why I needed to destroy me. I then wound up with this story about three siblings trying to survive their family and navigate the doomed future they all seemed inevitable to succumb to. It removed so much emotional baggage from me, and that October? My wife handed me a pregnancy test and I learned that we had another baby on the way. It all seemed to fit, having spent so much time with my oldest I was finding my confidence as a man and a parent and learning that another was on the way made me realize I had more to live for now. I eventually forgot about this book until November of 2019 when Atmosphere Press were looking for manuscripts and I took a chance. The following month? I ran into the bedroom to wake my wife up and show her the acceptance letter. I don't know what happens next. I hope it finds its readers. I hope people walk away from it with something more than they read an okay book. I am both excited and terrified, but I have to be honest with you? As someone with more farewell attempts under his belt than Cher and Motley Crue combined? I am at peace with being a published author who might not sell hundreds of books, than being someone who couldn't exist feeling like such a failure and never knowing if it would happen. So, I will work on an audio book...I will do this reading next Friday (which I decided I'll do as both a ZOOM and Instagram live) and who knows. All I know? Every day above ground is a good day.
This is the MOST important election I have ever voted in. I voted for Biden. On a personal note? When Trump went into office? I couldn't afford the co-pay for therapy. I couldn't afford to medications I needed to treat my bi-polar disorder. I stopped taking medication to treat my mental illness, because I literally couldn't afford it. My therapist waived the insane co-pay my provider demanded once Trump took office. This man does not care about you, no matter how much of his rhetoric you are convinced is truth. Before my life took her new job? COVID-19 wiped out twenty-percent of her nursing home, one of those residents was a close family friend. I am angry, REAL angry. I voted, because its not enough to be angry I needed to take action.
If you vote Trump for four more years? His reign of terror may not have hit you yet, but its going to. Don't think about how much you hate liberals, think about your children, your parents, your neighbors, your relatives, your friends. Every single one of them in one form or another has suffered because of his four years in office. This isn't an endorsement, this is me begging you....fucking listen to reason! As a published horror writer, I have to admit something...I don't know if I could ever write anything nearly as terrifying as the cult of Trump. My childhood best friend sent me this today while she was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. I don't know if this is how we cope with everything that has been going on, but this past summer we were shooting texts back and fourth with the most ridiculous displays of cult behavior from Trump supporters. I can't emphasize enough how insane these people come across, I have never in my thirty-three years of life witnessed people supporting a United States President like he was a modern day prophet.
The worst part is knowing how easily he and his administration are manipulating these people into believing all of these baseless conspiracy theories and catering to glorified rhetoric. I don't know if I should be proud of myself for not being so easily duped by the fear mongering, if I should be terrified that the anti-intellectualism movement is thriving and growing daily in this country. You have these people organizing attempts to kidnap governors, protesting outside of the houses of politicians and doctors over their rage for how unconstitutional mask mandates are, and chanting for this man to get "12 more years!" and yet...they are also seething over schools going completely remote because god forbid their children don't get a proper education! The irony is so painful. You want to risk your children's lives and the lives of the teachers and staff of these schools so your kid gets an education while also exhibiting behavior that reveals that you clearly don't value education as much as you want the world to believe you do. It is so frustrating. The pseudo self-righteous types who claim that Trump is the gift of their God while also rooting for peaceful protestors and black people to be gunned down in the streets...at what can you keep telling yourself, there in fact IS a GOD. I am not trying to be offensive, its an honest question. Is there an actual God (he/she/it) why is this happening? What is the purpose of ALL of this? I won't lie, I have always considered myself agnostic bordering on atheist but with kids came an open mind and a desire to have them belong to a community. Right before the shutdown, my wife and I were beginning to narrow down what church might be a good fit for the four of us...and then Trump has protestors tear gassed and manhandled away from a church so he can leverage a photo opportunity to hold a bible upside down and backwards. Upside down and backwards...that's kind of where I am at with all of this. Initially, the poems were flowing pretty intensely. When the book arrived and I started doing promotional work for it, not so much. I have this process though, with writing? My brain takes these fleeting breaks where it just needs to figure out where the hell everything is. It can get pretty depressing. If I'm not constantly writing? I feel like I'm losing time, opportunity, and wasting potential. Its also the best way to keep myself from getting too vulnerable to all the things that drive me crazy about my life and the world around me. Why can't I find a fucking job? Who the hell is reading this book? Is anyone? Did I already peak? Why am I not such a pop culture or horror nut anymore? Do my kids like me? Am I good dad? The questions go on and on... Hopefully a break will arrive sooner than later, for myself and for all of us. I have worked a number of jobs over the years: furniture stainer, Blockbuster employee, Salem haunted house actor, rat torture victim #2 on a History Channel special, theatrical day camp counselor, Money Matters Radio intern, WFNX intern, WAAF/Mike-FM intern, board-op at WAAF, thrift store manager, West Elm backroom, and finally as a custodian in a nursing home...this is the first time I have ever held a check in my hand for my art. My wife wouldn't stop harassing me until I opened it as she called it a "very BIG moment." Now look, I am not doing Bob Woodrow or Mary Trump numbers and I am no closer to owning a yacht than I was making eight dollars an hour staining furniture in a poorly ventilated warehouse in subzero temperatures and heatwaves, but this was really special.
I don't expect the checks to get bigger or the number of sales to soar, but as a stay at home parent who is desperately failing to land a job and a writer who has just wanted to feel validated in any way, I will take it. So, what happens now? There is still the Book Reading/Q&A scheduled for Friday, October 30th at 7 p.m. on ZOOM (I am still not quite sure how I plan to announce that link, at this point I think I'm just going to post it here and on Instagram the day before the event) and a few opportunities to do podcasts or do a local paper may be on the table. After that? I don't know...I guess that's what makes this both very exciting and absolutely terrifying. I mailed out some donated copies to libraries, I reached out to a local book store today but was asked to call back early next week, and I just keep trying to remain visible on the gram. Really, the best part about putting a book out? I'm putting myself out there again, and people have been really sweet and so fucking compassionate about the material or the things that led to the creation of the material. I am still very self conscious (more so because of my kids) about being so honest or candid about my life, my past, and the work I am creating. That really is the most rewarding part of all of this, all I wanted from this book? It wasn't the money and it wasn't to become a New York Times Best Selling Author (sure, I wouldn't exactly hate those things) but it was to be read and subsequently asked to talk about what I wrote. To connect with people either completely new in my life, faces from a past I felt too shy addressing, or old friends checking in? It is cool to see where everyone is at and get a chance to assure them that it all worked out. How are all of you doing? Is everyone safe? Healthy? How are you all holding up mentally? I hope this writing finds you well and I really hope that we are able to make it out of this waking nightmare together and completely renewed. This book has been lingering around in the recesses of my mind since I was twenty-four years old. I don’t know why, but when I thought back to my childhood (specifically living in the house I grew up in) I couldn’t help but entertain the idea that…you know, so much awful or scary shit that had been normalized for me might actually NOT be normal. I can remember being in third grade with a handful of classmates having lunch with the school psychologist when one of those classmates (and neighbor of mine) began talking about the blonde boy that was haunting my family. The school psychologist looked like he didn’t know if he should phone D.S.S. or goad my friend to keep talking about it.
There were A LOT of people who knew about the horrors inside of my house (both supernatural and domestic) and I was just this naïve moron walking around thinking…what? You guys don’t have little blonde specters calling out for his mother and waking your parents up in the middle of the night to bring them to the bedroom you are sleeping in? The older I get the less normal I think it was that so many of us growing up were playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” or rotating our shoulders in our parents’ mirrors to see the fingertips of our guardian angels. These were things I did, saw, experienced, and ultimately tracked back to…wow, our home lives were kind of weird weren’t they? When you’re so scared to go to school because you’re terrified the teachers are going to ridicule you, or your peers are going to ostracize you then to get off the bus and go back home to a place where all you hear is what a cumbersome economical strain you are on your family? You tend to treat the supernatural with a bit of curiosity and dare I say gusto. When you feel so uncomfortable in your own skin, so unwanted in your own home, and such a leper around kids your own age? You will go to any length to find solace, even if its in folklore or the impossible and improbable likelihood that there is more to your life than being an outcast, a reject, or god forbid a mistake. As a kid, I was only scared of one thing. My father. That was it. I wasn’t afraid of demons, possession, drugs, ghosts, Satan, Marilyn Manson, not getting into college, or the liberal boogeyman. I was afraid of the man who created me. Then I was afraid of myself. The plague that was me. How ironic that we’re all socially distancing now to avoid giving our loved ones something that could potentially kill them, and yet that was how I felt my entire life. Knowing me wasn’t a privilege it was a liability. I used to treat my own existence like a virus that I didn’t want to grow into a pandemic. This story deals very much with people who never ever felt comfortable with who they were, or who they wanted to be. You would just as likely find an avatar to latch onto for dear life than to ever exude any semblance of yourself out of fear that it would ruin others. We are two weeks away from me holding a ZOOM meeting about this book, but I think I can divulge a few nuggets here and there about the genesis of this story. If you’ve read it, you’re reading it, or you’re still on the fence, I hope you’ll attend and we can have fun with the 90s and a lot of the things that made that decade so unusual. The moral of the story? We need to learn from the past, and stop normalizing or romanticizing it. |
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