Savage Punk Rock Detective

Plus, The Witch's Door is opening...

I’m wrapping up my sojourn in rural Tennessee with some good news: I finished my novel last week.

It’s the longest book I’ve ever written – even longer than Corporate Rock Sucks. It’s also the most ambitious, the most autobiographical, and most punk rock of all my novels. It took one year, two months, and four days to write.

It’s about a struggling writer who tries to solve the mystery of his best friend’s disappearance at a punk rock show in the desert thirty years ago. It’s about friendship, failure and what it means to be punk—in 1992 and today. It’s called Black Van.

I’m supposed to say it needs a lot of work, a ton of revision – and it does – but I feel pretty great about it.

I just have one problem. How do you celebrate when you’re all by yourself in rural Tennessee?

You get creative.

It’s been a very dry summer here and the water in the Buffalo River has been low, making it possible to wander around in places where the river usually flows.

I’ve been like a kid, skipping rocks, turning over stones, chasing lizards and spiders down at the river’s edge.  

Last week a large piece of bark called out to me. It was light and smooth and curled like a page from a book.

Look at this arty shit

I told myself that when I finished the novel I’d write the last line on this piece of bark. Watching leaves and twigs drift by in the river, I had another thought: after I write the final line on it, I’ll send that piece of bark down the river.

The piece of bark sat on my desk like a talisman, an incentive to get the book across the finish line.

On the day I finished, it rained all day and by late evening it was pouring. The storm cells passing through south central Tennessee were the outer bands of Hurricane Florence as it made its way up the coast.

In the morning, there was a brief window between the storms and I scampered down to the Buffalo River. The places I’d explored were now covered with water. What I thought were stagnant pools were connected to the river. The landscape had completely changed. It was like a different river.

And then it started to rain.

I made my way out to the edge. I hadn’t thought about what to say, what to do. I just wanted my boat – and my book – to have a good journey. But what if it sank? What if it got hung up in the shallows or snagged in the weeds? Was I manifesting bad omens for my book’s journey before it even got underway?

It was raining too hard to dwell on these things. I was getting soaked and the water was rising. I pushed my little boat into the river and said, “Bon voyage, little boat!”

It didn’t sink. It didn’t drift into shore. The bark caught the current and went downriver, getting smaller and smaller until it rounded the bend and disappeared from view.

Bon voyage, Black Van.

The Witch’s Door is opening!

I’m coming back to California just in time for the launch of The Witch’s Door, the book I collaborated on with Ryan Matthew Cohn and Regina M. Rossi.

The official launch will be at Clifton’s Republic on Wednesday Oct. 2 from 7pm to 9pm. There will be a panel discussion, Q&A, and a book signing. Books will be supplied by The Last Bookstore.

I won’t be at this event but I’ll be there when the fun continues on Saturday at The Oddities Flea Market at AVALON at 1735 Vine Street from 1pm to 6pm. You can get a signed copy from Ryan and Regina and I’ll be there with Nuvia to soak up the experience.

If you can’t make it, you should absolutely preorder The Witch’s Door before October 1 so you can enjoy this lavish and macabre-looking book before spooky season.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all of those, consider preordering my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

Message from the Underworld comes out every Wednesday and is always available for free, but paid subscribers also get my deepest gratitude and Orca Alert! on most Sundays. It’s a weekly round-up of links about art, culture, crime, and killer whales. Orca Alert is currently on hiatus while I’m in Tennessee but will be back soon. Perhaps as soon as this weekend…