Make It Stop

My new book is available for pre-order now

I’m very excited to announce my new novel, MAKE IT STOP, will be published on April 11, 2023, by Rare Bird Books. This has been in the works for a long time. How long? Well, more on that down the road. Let me tell you what it’s about first…

MAKE IT STOP takes place in LA in the near future where health care has gotten so bad that if you can’t pay your hospital bills, you don’t get to leave. Our hero, Melanie Marsh, works for an underground vigilante group called Make It Stop that busts people out of these prison hospitals, which now have their own corporate security forces because of course they do.

Melanie’s specialty is rehab centers and recovery wards. As a recovering alcoholic she’s been in and out of them her entire life. She goes undercover and impersonates a rehabee until she finds her target and then she gets them out. But when a dangerous new drug hits the streets, things get a lot more challenging for Make It Stop and its operatives.

It all started when I read an article in the Los Angeles Times about a hospital in Nigeria that was holding its patients hostage until they could settle their debts. A lot of the patients were poor women who’d just given birth to babies. How incredibly fucked up is that? I thought, which was quickly followed by That could never happen here. Except I didn’t believe it and neither do you. We pay through the nose for health insurance knowing that if we get in a serious car accident we’ll be financially ruined. One wrong move and we’re fucked for life. And if we don’t have health insurance? That’s a different kind of prison, isn’t it?

Because I’m a recovering alcoholic, I wondered how this scenario would play out in a rehab setting. Surely we wouldn’t stand for it. We’d take action! I envisioned a group of vigilantes with a high-tech set-up like Criminal Minds or Bones and thought, Nah, I’ll put them in a shitty yoga studio at the Sherman Oaks Mall, and MAKE IT STOP was born.

You know you’re in trouble when the hospital looks like a prison...

MAKE IT STOP is Fight Club meets Girl, Interrupted. Here’s what some of my favorite writers have to say about it:   

“A bare knuckle, punk rock fever dream about American health care."
—Joshua Mohr, author of Model Citizen

“What starts as a compulsively readable futuristic thriller subtly turns into a character story about a woman finding herself, and finding meaning, in a deeply flawed world. Do not pass this book up; read it today.” 
—Sara Gran, author of The Book of the Most Precious Substance

"A scathing indictment of the rehab industrial complex, Jim Ruland’s Make It Stop is an intoxicating cocktail of crime and conspiracy, set to a SoCal punk soundtrack. A neo noir thriller I found impossible to put down, or forget."
—Elizabeth Hand, author of The Book of Lamps and Banners

“Make It Stop is a zany, heartfelt, hold-on-to-your-butts rollercoaster about vigilantism and sobriety and what happens when the institutions of healing are also happy to kill you. Welcome to Jim Ruland’s too believable near future of debtors’ hospitals and private police. Capitalism: it’s one hell of a drug.”
—Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay

"A punk rock thrill ride."
—Francesca Lia Block, author of House of Hearts

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? You can preorder MAKE IT STOP right now. That means if you purchase a copy from Bookshop or Amazon or your local independent bookstore, they’ll send you the book on the day it comes out. You can even get yourself a signed copy directly from the publisher.

Pre-orders are a huge help, but so is sharing this newsletter with the anarchic bibliophile in your life or requesting it from your local library or talking about it on social media. It all helps.

I know some of you are thinking, That’s nice, Jim, but how can I get a copy right now?

I’ll tell you. Have you had a shitty healthcare experience? Did you have a doctor who didn’t listen? Get a ridiculous bill for basic services? Visit a hospital that looked like a prison? There’s no end to the dehumanizing crap we have to put up with when we’re at the mercy of our broken healthcare system.

Post a photo, send a tweet, fire off a video with the hashtag makeitstop. Do whatever it is you do, just use #makeitstop and be sure to tag me. I’ll share some of the stories here in Message form the Underworld and every few weeks I’ll give away a copy of Make It Stop.

Thanks for reading (and preordering and sharing). I’m off to New Orleans this weekend and will have a full report next week.