And now, for a little sneak peek from William Murphy’s Trip to the Quiet Room, a novel I hope you’ll be able to read some day.
If you happen to be or know a literary agent, I’m more than happy for you to get in touch. Heck, even if you’re not you’re welcome to drop me a line.
Grantland put together a nice little documentary on the disappearance of the role of the fighter in today’s National Hockey League, starring Paul Bissonnette, Brian McGrattan, and Colton Orr on the fighting end of the stick. All three of those guys put in time in the American Hockey League this year, toiling away while they waited for spots to open up again in the NHL.
http://grantland.com/features/grantland-features-knuckles-vs-numbers/?edf
It’s about eight minutes long, give or take, so four hooking penalties or thereabouts.
All of those guys have enjoyed some success in the big leagues, but the American Hockey League is where William Murphy, protagonist of “William Murphy’s Trip to the Quiet Room” whiles away his hockey life, literally fighting for his livelihood. The book joins him once his career (and the career of his buddy, another fighter, Germaine Bousquet) is over, but the rough and tumble nature of what he did doesn’t just let go because he’s hung up his skates and his gloves.
Grantland do a great job of showing off the guys affected by this shift in mentality in the NHL away from fighters and the stats guys affecting the change. You’ll note, though, that never the twain shall meet (which is probably for the best).
So if you’re into hockey, or if these guys and the lives they live are in any way the slightest bit interesting to you and you’re an agent or publisher or know one, well, have I ever got a book for you.*
* And if you’re not into hockey, well, the book isn’t all about hockey. It’s also about plumbing, Old Sturbridge Village, time travel, mothers and daughters, the F.B.I., and Cape Cod.
If I told you I had a book and you weren’t immediately frightened by that prospect (of me having a book, not me talking to you), which title would make you more likely to read it?
Answers on a postcard… or, preferably, sent by picking a button next to your choice above and hitting “Vote”.
Still no news on the agent front (besides mean-spirited April Fools jokes), just working out my email-sending fingers.
Dennis did a spot for WGBH a little while ago in which he talks a little about his latest book, his connection to Boston, even though he’s now living on the west coast. It’s a short but sweet interview but obviously the part that resonated with me was this:
I think you write better when you are homesick. [… T]he next book is set in Boston. I’m writing it from California. I’m thinking about Boston all the time.
There’s a long history of the exiled writer, whether self- or Hollywood-imposed, and I wholeheartedly agree, I think (and others may not agree) that my best writing comes when I’m writing about home. For example, Butterfly (which may be retitled William Murphy’s Trop to the Quiet Room, for sake of trying to hook an agent’s interest) is set in Worcester, Massachusetts, the town in which I was born; a little bit in that venerable tourist attraction, Old Sturbridge Village, just down the street from where I grew up; and Cape Cod, a favorite vacation spot from my youth (and still). For each of the interminable drafts I sat in my grandparent’s floor in a three decker on Hillside Street, wandered the muddy spring paths of Old Sturbridge Village, probably with a stick of rock candy in my hand, or sat with my back against the dunes down on Nauset Light Beach. Which is to say I use that feeling of homesickness to try and make the scenes that little bit more vivid, much like Dennis Lehane does and Joyce did with Ulysses (with far greater commercial and just plain old regular success).
Dennis Lehane is appearing at Listowel Writers’ Week, which has an amazing lineup this year. If you’re in the area at the end of May you really shouldn’t miss it. Tell Anne Enright I sent you.
Everyone’s a critic, even the Post Office, it seems:
I’ll bet this same thing happened to The Crying of Lot 49
Michael Joyce, he of the “no longer maintaining a web presence” fame (oh, and afternoon, a story, and Twilight, a Symphony, The Sonatas of Saint Francis, and Going the Distance, and, and and), once compared my latest novel to Haruki Murakami (“Murakami in Massachusetts,” specifically).
Well, I’ve yet to start an agony uncle column/website like Murakami, but I have to say, having read some of his advice (from an article in the Washington Post), I feel a new kinship with the author.
The question is “Do you have any cafe chains you like to go to?” To which Murakami answers, in part:
I miss Dunkin Donut.
Oh me too, Mr. Murakami, me too.
Brandon Prust, an enforcer for the Habs (boooo), has written an article for The Players’ Tribune with his take on how fighting still fits into the game.
As you may know by now, Butterfly, a novel, my novel about an ex-enforcer trying (and failing) to live out his days peacefully, touches on a lot of the same emotions and reasoning that Prust goes through in his article.
Once the gloves fall off, everything else kind of fades away. You can’t hear the fans. You can’t hear the ref. It’s just silence. That’s the easy part. The tough part is the day leading up to the game when you know you’re going up against a tough guy. You can’t help but think about it all day, and you go through a roller coaster of emotions.
So many of them, from Brandon, with this article, to Shawn Thornton, to George Parros, so many of them are so eloquent and articulate about the task of fighting for a living, they approach their job with such discipline and forethought, that I think they’re fascinating characters to follow for a book-length journey. Here’s hoping an agent thinks the same.
I’ve been delinquent in updating lately because there’s not much to update. Per my author scoreboard, I’ve got a bloop single in the form of a request for a full manuscript from one agent, a few rejections, and a handful of un-responses, which are possibly worse than rejections, once they remain non-responses after eight weeks or so.
In the meantime I’m at work on the next novel, tentatively titled “Ozymandias,” but it’s all still notebooks and 5 a.m. wakeup calls on that front, which is hardly thrilling stuff.
So sit tight, have a cup of tea or two, and I’m sure I’ll have something good for you soon. After all, I still have to write up my meeting with David Mitchell, my visit from the Dalai Lama, a scuba diving excursion to Des Moines, and playing ping pong with Ghengis Khan’s great-great-great-great grand daughter’s best friend Timmy.
TLDR: Watch this series of videos if you, like me, are obsessed with the theory of time.
Otherwise, read on if you want some history on my early novel-writing efforts and more background on Butterfly, a novel.
So a very long time ago I was a graduate from a mostly prestigious college with a degree in a mostly prestigious field. And when I graduated and the spike of panic over having an English degree subsided and I found a different way to make a living I sat down and finished a novel-in-progress called Time, a novel.
At the time I lived in Brooklyn and worked down on Houston and Hudson St in Manhattan. When I was finished with the novel I printed it out at Kinkos (one across from CBGBs, if I remember right, which I may not), chucked a few copies into envelopes and skulked around the buildings near Penguin just down the street from the White Horse Tavern. Nothing came of it. Probably because the book wasn’t all that good. I should re-read it to verify, but I’m trusting my memory on this one.
It was a story, at its heart, about two young folks trying to get lunch. They get kidnapped, separately and together, by a few different groups, including a cosplay-ish Greek/Trojan reenactment group and the employees of a local tinsel factory, for which the male protagonist works. Or did work. It was set in Worcester, Massachusetts, of the Elizabeth Bishop poem, “In the Waiting Room,” the notorious heart of the Commonwealth, birthplace of my own self.
I moved to other companies, not so conveniently located to harass employees of the big publishing firms, and which demanded, or at least occupied more and more of my time. I moved on to another book project that centered around litter on the streets of Brooklyn that, thank God, I put to rest a few years ago.
Butterfly, a novel, my latest complete novel and the thing I’m shopping around to agents and publishers now (with less stalking… less *physical* stalking, anyway), just so happens to be set in Worcester, Massachusetts, home of the Holy Cross Crusaders, Rotmans, and Turtle Boy. William Murphy, in his post-hockey career, works a job at a factory, which just so happens to be the same tinsel factory the protagonist from Time, a novel works at. The cabal in this particular book happens to be a collection of blacksmiths from Old Sturbridge Village, everyone’s favorite central Massachusetts school field trip destination; a bunch of drop-outs from MIT living by the seaside on a butterfly ranch are another.
But another central theme is that of time travel and the effects of time. I just spent a few minutes, here and there, watching these World Science U videos on Time and would encourage you to do the same. I’ve only just stumbled across the site, but it looks like it’s got some amazing content to satisfy curious minds.
And I also wanted an excuse to post that Time cover, which uses the image of the Three Fates statue in the southeast corner of Stephen’s Green in Dublin, which we walked past just last week.
So Butterfly, a novel is about more than just hockey and people beating each other, and ultimately themselves, senseless.
It’s also about Old Sturbridge Village, a 19th century New England village. Anybody who grew up in Central Massachusetts in the 80s probably visited the Village three, four, a dozen times on school field trips.
Well, if you’re out that way, perhaps visiting the sights of Butterfly, a novel, by your favorite author, this will likely be one of your big ticket stops (along with a certain three decker on Hillside St. in beautiful Worcester, Massachusetts). And the Boston Globe have a few suggestions for other things to do in Sturbridge while you’re out there, in addition to some 19th century fun and games.
To add to that list, you might as well pop a couple towns over and visit The Booklovers’ Gourmet, in Webster, Massachusetts. We did some readings for Fenway Fiction, the original, here, and Deb, the owner is the best. I believe she may have a mug to prove it.
Enjoy your trip to the Far West, as I certainly thought of it, as a kid, and we’ll be back soon in another installment of the Butterfly, a novel literary tour.
The Columbus Dispatch broke Nathan Horton’s story first, but it’s been spread around a few places and added to, most recently by The Hockey News – “Former teammate Marc Savard feels Nathan Horton’s pain.”
You can only hope Horton makes the right decision, whatever that might be, but it breaks your heart to see — this guy who’s so young succumb to “feeling like an old man” at 29, unable to play the game, work the job he’s been working at nearly his whole life. And if he doesn’t… what then? What becomes of the rest of his life? Does it only get as bad as Marc Savard has it, which includes rolling headaches and bouts of depression, but at least he gets to spend time with his kids?
When you play sports at a high level you tend to push your body that little bit harder, have to dedicate just that bit extra time to your fitness and skills. Both those things conspire against each other, because the harder you push the more likely injury is, and you tend to play through the little injuries, compounding them, because you have spent so much time preparing yourself to play, so why wouldn’t you go out and do just that?
I think the Matt Christopher books got me into athletes as protagonist — I devoured his books when I was a kid. But I loved all things sports. I wasn’t particularly good at sports, I think I did okay, and I played for a very good Division III college volleyball program that demanded moderate physical preparation and practice, but even I recall my final season when my shoulder wasn’t quite right, my knees were sore most days, and it just became more difficult to get up and play. I remember struggling with having and even wanting to give up a sport I had put so much into and can only imagine how much harder it is for someone at Horton or Savard’s level.
I didn’t explicitly fish around for story ideas or characters and think, “Hey, an ex-athlete would be a great protagonist for my new novel,” William Murphy just sort of walked on and happened to have a hockey background, some concussion issues, and a family he was spending more time with (albeit not for long). It’s a fascinating ground with built-in tensions and obstacles to overcome (or not) and great fodder for a story.
But that’s the book. In real life, I don’t know what the right decision is, but I wish Marc Savard good and improving health and good luck, Horty, with your decision.
