Set Your Soul On Fire

Back in the 80s, AIDS protestors (protesting lack of funding/concern by the government) took to the streets across the country. Police were so afraid they might get the disease—even though the protestors may not have it and ignoring the science that stated you couldn't get it by mere contact—that they wore gloves in case they needed to touch one of the demonstrators.

Obviously, this enraged the protesters even more as it showed how they were treated as less than human. I remember seeing newscasts about these and the image stayed in my subconscious. When I thought about a follow up to my book TAX BREAK, these images came back. My mind played around with it all and finally suggested to me “what if these protestors decided to kick it up a notch?”

So SOULS ON FIRE tells that story. These activists decide to resort to terrorism to make their point. They embrace the Viking belief that it's better to die fighting for your beliefs than whither away in bed. They attack banks to get money to support themselves and attack the police to get revenge.

In a way, it also reflects the mindset of the people in the Warsaw ghetto during WWII. The people knew the Nazis would inevitably kill them, so they might as well fight back to the best of their ability.

 AIDS is a major theme of the book, but a more subtle one, albeit just as important, is PTSD.  I modeled the story a bit like “Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway. An engrossing (and depressing) story about a young man who returns from WWI and is drastically changed from his prewar self.

This doesn't hit you in the face, but you can begin to see it in the character by the flashbacks he experiences. I won't say much more about this as I don't want to spoil it for you (and it's important when you read any book that you discover what the author is saying) but when you read it think about whether anything is odd or if his judgement has changed.

This book also delves more into Austin then the previous book. I'm in love with this city and you get to learn about its politics, environment, well, the nature of the city. Of course, I also had to mention a great musician who graced the city (and one of its great music venues from the day).

A writing point about the book: it's really short. According to one book seller you should be able to read it within three hours. As I wrote it I kept having this weird internal battle that on one hand said go into more detail, but on the other said, well, the kids today have an attention span of five seconds, so keep it short buster. Okay, I admit that even I sometimes skim books these days so I can get to the grist. So it was for me too.

On a personal note, this took me a long time to write.  I began the project in 2008 and slowly worked on completing it over the next 10 years.  I could blame that because a few years before beginning I got hit by a car while biking and my house burned down, but I am not sure those still weighed on my thoughts. 

It might have also stemmed from being depressed about lack of sales for my other books or how difficult it had been to get short stories published (I have quite a few that succeeded).  However, I have a feeling it’s more likely that it’s that I seem to get distracted easily these days.  Oh, is there a football game on right now?  Maybe.

I hope this insight into SOULS ON FIRE intrigued you enough to give it a try.  Think of it as a great distraction you can complete reading on your next long flight.  Or that you believe you’ll be dragged into this action-packed novel because it delves into important social issues. Whatever your reason, I hope you enjoy it and that it does more than entertains you, but also causes you to pause and think.  It sure did that to me as I wrote it.

Ahhh, James Thurber

 A short description of SOULS ON FIRE:

In 1985 AIDS activists slaughter police and terrorize Austin in the new blockbuster mystery SOULS ON FIRE.  Buy it now to discover if a movie-addicted police detective and his former CIA agent and bar-owner friend can stop the violence that engulfs the city.

FaceBook page:

https://www.facebook.com/SoulsOnFire.JayW/

This ain't TRASH!

People love gossip.  Oh, sure, there are some high-brow folks who will scrunch their noses at the thought of gossip filling the air, but you can still catch them sneaking a peek at "People" for news about Angelina and Brad's latest public snit, or what Jennifer says about that noticeable tummy bump.

Humans just love to hear—and talk about —other people.

"Writing Trash and Hunting Buffalo" is my new e-book about gossip. More particularly it's about a Vietnam vet turned gossip columnist who writes biting articles about Hollywood elite in order to bring them back to Earth.

Of course, this book complicates things by infusing symbolism, bitter rivalries, head-strong personalities and personal tics throughout its pages.

For example, the buffalo in the title (and the Warriors who hunt them) represent a dying visage/ideal of our past. They have a link to the main character too, but you'll have to figure out why.

I wrote this book partly because I had these memories of going to Grandma's house in Hays, Kansas as a child and finding these glitzy gossip rags on her coffee table. When the adults weren't looking, I'd grab a few and go to the basement to look them over. As a testosterone-laden kid I mainly liked the pictures of scantily-clad, young starlets. However, thinking back to those memories as an adult, the contrast of the strait-laced Midwestern older woman reading these Babylon chronicles really struck a nerve. So the book points out this internal war between the stereotypical concepts of the Midwest versus The Hollywood jet-set.

Although I knew it would have a Midwestern aspect, initially I thought the main character would be from Iowa. As a Star Trek fan I wanted to give a nod to Captain Kirk as I always choose him over Picard in the debate over the best captain of the Enterprise. I eventually settled on Hutchinson, Kansas as the character's childhood home because of an article I once saw in the 80s that said that city had more millionaires per capita than anywhere (one of the characters is rich).  Okay, my parents lived there for a number of years and that may have been a slight factor too. 

Probably the biggest underlying theme of the book concerns what happens to your soul when you become the thing you despise.  The main character is a pretty straight-as-an-arrow Midwesterner thrown amongst a hedonistic, money-grubbing society he absolutely hates. He has some childhood issues that feed his animosity and reinforce his contempt for those who believe they are superior.  This pretty much makes him a walking time bomb. Yes, it's not light reading.

Okay, it's no Hemingway novel, but I do pay homage to him with a quote from the main character: "To a writer, a bar is the most important place in his life—after the desk his typewriter sits on."

After all, Hemingway was a hard-drinking journalist/novelist.  

Speaking of journalist/novelists, I also had to mention the University of Texas in the book. The main character received his journalism degree from there. I did this partly because Walter Cronkite studied there (yes, a journalism God), but I also earned a journalism degree from UT. As a side note, they used to offer a class called "The journalist as novelist."  Clever link to Hemingway, eh? Sadly, I never got to take the course.

 

So BUY TRASH.  You'll love the characters and get excited about the barroom fights, but maybe you'll also love the internal struggle to maintain your soul while surrounded by a world alien to your beliefs. Happy hunting.

The Thurber Brigade does not apologize for this sidestep (even though it's the third in a row). James Thurber would love TRASH.