Stranger Will - Book Club May '11

Okay guys,

Very excited for this one. Caleb lives on just the other side of town from me, so it's nice to be able to have a beer with this guy and ask him whatever I want about writing and whatnot.

Let's start it off simple...real simple:

What did you think of the book?

Anything that particularly worked or didn't work for you?

Once discussion gets rollin' we'll delve into some deeper issues.

Thanks for the kind words, PG.

To everyone, know that I will not be posting here during most of May. My hope is to get some good discussion going, without worrying about my prying eyes. If anyone wants me to come and respond to something, feel free to PM me, and I will get right over here.

Hmm, made a start on this tonight, chapter 10 so far. I don't want to spend too much time in this thread before I finish the book, (spoilers et al) but I thought I'd post an early impression.

I was suprised by the perspective. I have been reading sssooo much 1st person stuff recently, I had kind of assumed this would be that way too. (yeah I know what assuming does) Interesting to see how Caleb is quite intimate with Will's feelings despite the persepctive, more so than most 3rd person stuff would be. I was impressed at how quickly he got me under Will's skin. Seems to me like this character is a bit of a prick, and is rather bleak, yet I am finding myself getting behind him.

It's like Caleb has taken what is good about 1st person (the intimacy between narrator and reader) and forced it at gunpoint to work in another form.

One tiny gripe though, where are the damn page numbers???

I'll be back when I've read the rest.

You have a downloaded copy or something?

Nope I have the Otherworld paperback.

I could have swore that mine had page numbers in it... I'll have to double check when I get home.

The first batch of preorders and week-one orders were missing page numbers, headers, and some other interior cosmetics. Those, plus a slightly-altered cover, are fixed in the subsequent printings. There's also a lot of txpos, even in the new ones, which is a shame, because even though they're still young, Otherworld has put out several books now with these same issues and you'd think they'd be more diligent with their editorial given those lessons-learned.

I'm almost done reading it, and will post more thoughts in a day or two. (Hint: I like it a lot.)

I just received word from amazon that mine shipped today -I'm a hardcover nut so that's what I ordered and I'll let y'all know if it has page numbers. Either way, it's 188 pages and I should have that read this weekend. Will be back to participate then.

Have the kindle edition, not too shabby. About 40% done, I like the concepts but the fact that I have a very young daughter and very new baby boy makes a little bit of a rickety bridge between me and the character, where I also deal with the deceased quite often as an EMT and know first hand what it feels, smells and looks like when you have to help clean up the mess. I think I will have to read this more than once to absorb all the detail and between-the-lines information.

Good read so far.

Finished this morning, had nothing to do today so decided to put quite a shift in for the reading. I suppose I should warn about spoilers, would hate my casual opinions to ruin the book for anyone.

A conventional tale this is not. Very dark.

Great to see such a different approach to the parenthood theme. It managed to attract and repel my conscience at the same time. I mean, anyone who reads this is going be glad Will buys a new shotgun at the end, and glad he uses it, but they are going to have to admit that much about Mrs. Rose makes more sense in this world than it ever should.

And I fucking love that a major part of the plot has a guy dressed as a tramp, hanging outside a school watching kids, and yet this is our good guy. Such a twisted little circumstance.

Caleb certainly has an knack for a hard hitting sentence, lots of the chapters start and finish with such strong images being punched into the readers face. The upbeats are snappy, the downbeats are very fucking depressing.

It seems a bit.... rough in places though. At times I feel it bounced about a bit too much, some of the scenes with Will and Sheila, and in fact Sheila's character in general, seemed to meander a fair bit. Also the introduction of the other strangers and then their subsequent under-use seemed strange, I was expecting them to feature again before the end.

However this is the only criticism I have other than typos. (which as Gordon posted above, may very well be Otherworld's fault rather than Calebs)

So yeah, overall I rather enjoyed it. It painted a really bleak picture, and offered up a character that seemed to be thoroughly lost. Then it turned on its head with the connection to Eugene, and this little beacon of light gave me a chance to reassess this Stranger Will. For the last quarter or so of the book I was flat out rooting for him, not bad going for a baby killer.

"William brings his gun to his face and considers for a moment ending the dog."

Yeah, mine came in the mail today. Got through the first four chapters and I like what I'm reading so far -I'll have more and respond to the existing posts when I'm done -But just as a quick FYI with regards to the earlier talk about the pages numbers: The Hardcover from amazon's got 'em. I have page numbers on the bottom right corners. So that's good.

My copy was also missing page numbers. There was actually numerous problems the publisher didn't get ironed out before the actual printing, so yeah, some of them are going to be wonky. Blame Otherworld. Not Caleb. He was the one who caught it and immediately got on their ass about it. And on a personal note, I had a similar experience when releasing my book. Needless to say, it's bullshit and should have never gone down like that.

Here are a couple questions to consider:

#1 - Do you think this would be a good book for your parents to read? Why or why not?

#2 - Which images or scenes stick out to you?

Ha, funny you should ask that one question Brandon.(the parents one)

As not two hours ago my mother popped round for a smoke and to borrow some books (yeah I know, kind of weird) and whilst we were getting stoned I told her about Stranger Will and she decided to borrow that and Angel Dust Apocalypse.

I run alot of the books I buy past my mother after I read them. I have to dilute the rubbish she will get from the library if left unchecked.

She liked Invisible Monsters but didn't dig Rant. She liked The Contortionists Handbook but she wasn't too keen on Will Baer. She's into alot of horror stuff, King and Koontz and Barker et al. Also, I think she'd rape Irvine Welsh if she got chance.

I don't believe I have lent her your book yet. When she has read Stranger Will I will post what she thinks of it, and then maybe I will make her read Out Of Touch.

Okay so I haven't read but about 20 pages or so, but I'll comment on what I have read to participate and keep some discussion going. Stranger Will is #1 for my weekend plans and so I'll be getting a lot deeper into the book tonight and tomorrow, but so far the whole game of pigeons stays with me. He does well describing the town they live in, and the kind of town that it is, but the Actual Images for me that stand out are from that scene in the woods, with the dirt, the dog, the billboard, the pigeons -all of that. I read it last night and woke up this morning thinking about it.

It was also the first scene that tells me there may be more than meets the eye as far as this character and this story are concerned.

Teeth in his flesh, too, right? When he's bleeding after coming home? That stuff -there's violence already, without too much actually happening, and yeah simple things and simple images stay with me, like his whole pile of clothes, and running off to the bathroom to shower -that's what I do after running every day -throw the clothes in a pile, run to the shower -so there's a Setting that works for me, as far as The Young Married Couple goes, you know? A feeling as well as the images.

One thing that didn't stay with me, unfortunately, are the odors, smells and stenches. I'm not saying he did a poor job -I think he did a Great job with all of that, just speaking to the smells of clothes, the dead -how Rotten Things Mix with Pleasant Things -that was well done but the specific, actual smells I lost already, I think because I wasn't familiar with some. So I want to go back at some point as the story progresses and get those but yeah -I'll definitely post more about images as I go.

Interesting question about if this would be a good read for my mother and father -it hadn't crossed my mind and I'll put some serious thought into that when I'm finished. So far, probably not.

My dad doesn't read much fiction at all because he reads Heavily at work, all day, every day -he's "done" reading by the time he gets home. My mother reads, but her interests are Stieg Larsson, Dennis Lehane. Shit like that. I've tried over the years to get her to read books I like, and sometimes it works, often times not. We'll see, though.

Speaking to Otherworld and Out of Touch since those came up, I have some thoughts and comments there as well but I don't know if this is the appropriate thread unless no one gives a shit.

But I didn't even Think about recommending Out of Touch to my mom, and maybe I very well should since it has such a strong "mother/son" dynamic. I don't know. Can never tell with her. Happy Mother's Day, mommy girl.

Now That would be a crazy book to send to my mother -ahahaha -she would Never get into a book like that.

Got a little deeper into the book, so just a few more quick thoughts with regards to imagery. Definitely blood, definitely blue skin. Pigeons seem to be recurrent which is cool, but I really like the fact that Philip was brought into the story, or just the fact that William has a bond with another human being. A friend. Like that. He talks a lot about stains but it's the blood that stays with me vs. a concrete image of a stain. And he doesn't actually shower, I've noticed. I mentioned earlier about his pile of clothes and his trips to the bathroom -but it's not actually said that he does shower -seems to keep the shit on him the way the stains stay from the dead, or his bad breath on his wife from his smoking.

The writing, though. Man. It's the kind of writing that makes me want to get off my ass and focus on my own -so that's what I'm going to do right now. Will check in with everyone tomorrow night sometime if there's even any discussion going on.

OOT has its own thread: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000029/out-of-touch-book-club-february-...

I posted a full review at my site, but here are a few additional observations (mild spoilers).

What I loved:

• There are moments of pure brilliance in the prose, none more heartbreaking than the scene where Eugene is so proud of his ability read words aloud, yet is completely ignorant of their significance once strung together. Many of the descriptions had a very ethereal quality, like I write when on painkillers.

• The doll. That was seriously way fucked up.

• Carrier pigeons were a very clever device both for establishing a sense of community, but also some mystery, and protag guilt. That element was very Chuck in a good way.

• The way his occupation pervaded his entire existence, that even when not working, he couldn't shake off the chemical stank and all it entailed. Plus it's the ideal job choice (from a writer's standpoint) for such a character in conflict.

• Philip's simple nature provided an excellent contrast to Will.

• How "close" the narrative is to the protag. It didn't even occur to me that it was in third-person in hindsight; I'd have guessed first.

What I didn't:

• Shelia as a character reads uneven to me. Though her trauma/mental illness explains away some of that. She doesn't speak at all for several scenes, then all of a sudden she does, but there's little or no acknowledgement of the change.

• I wanted to see a lot more with the strangers as a group and what sorts of things they do on a regular basis. Also, does Will continue to wear that Santa beard when in "stranger mode"? I don't remember seeing later mentions of it.

• It was tough for me to buy that Will wouldn't want to visit his woman in the hospital more. He barely even seemed to think about her, and I think making him more conflicted about this (even if he didn't actually go) would make him more sympathetic in the middle of the story.

• The cult ideologies proffered sometimes seemed in conflict with one another re: the pursuit of perfection vs its futility, and there was quite a bit of, oh, I dunno the word, but I call it "soapboxing": that very Chuck technique of making grand philosophical statements meant to sound more insightful than they truly are. But I was guilty of that in my first book, too.

Looking forward to getting more discussion going on this. . .

I will finish this tonight! I hope...

I read Gordon's review. I agree with just about everything in it.

Me too -at least within the next night or two. Been pretty successful at skimming through comments without spoiling anything for myself, but I have a question or two if anyone cares to take a moment and fill me in....

I'm not rushing through this per say, but I am reading this book only right now and no others so I can get through it, and shit I may have to go back because I got lost somewhere I think.

So the van crashes, Julie's hurt, Mrs. Rose saves William and buries the dead baby. Check. Got it -and I gotta say I loved the book up to this point -But okay so William just went and saw Julie for the first time, posing as her brother. (Kind of like how Philip did with Shiela/Good stuff).

He comes home and finds his house burning down -Cops don't recognize him. But wouldn't they if they're out looking for him? Wouldn't they know his house? Doesn't the van register back to him? And even if these particular cops don't know who he is, William acknowledges that he's the owner of the house, they don't ask his name? It's not like he peeked in and split, either -he stops and talks to them, asks a cop for a cigarette... So are they looking for him or not?

I got the impression from the hospital scene that the crash was all over the news, that some local people were pretty fired up about it, and I had imagined that the police were out looking for him since it's acknowledged that the driver left the scene.

Or was that news report on the TV all in his head?

Yeah - I felt that I was either missing something, or it was kind of weak.

The van was registered to him - I'm guessing.
But the news was making it out like - they don't know who the van belongs to or who could have been driving it.

Okay so if they don't know who the van belongs to, I mean that makes a little more sense, but I didn't think it would be all that difficult to trace -especially since they have the wife's name and she's not a jane doe, no?

I don't know. Another thought was that the firecrew and police, as far fetched as it would be, work for Mrs. Rose. I'll keep reading...

I find myself agreeing with just about everything that Gordon posted.

There are moments of pure brilliance in the prose, none more heartbreaking than the scene where Eugene is so proud of his ability read words aloud, yet is completely ignorant of their significance once strung together.

Yes, yes, and thrice yes. The chapter where Will is watching the children burn themselves on the tree, and Eugene tries to read to him... you're are right, it’s near heartbreaking.
Eugene is definitely the part of this story that will stay with me most. He is a real lynchpin, his introduction was timed perfectly and he really gives us a new measure of Will.

Shelia as a character reads uneven to me. Though her trauma/mental illness explains away some of that. She doesn't speak at all for several scenes, then all of a sudden she does, but there's little or no acknowledgement of the change.

This is exactly what I was trying to say in my earlier post, what I meant by saying I found her to meander.

The doll. That was seriously way fucked up.

Indeed. My friend was eating Reece's Pieces today and I burst out laughing because I thought of foetus pieces. I decided not to explain it to him when he asked why I was laughing, didn't want to put him off his snack.

And as for the whole van ownership/police interest angle, I'm guessing it wasn't registered. If it were, then you guys are right, the police wouldn't have let it slip, not if the same guy's house burns down too.

I will be honest, this passed over my head when I was reading it. That whole part of the book was so quickly paced, I never found myself giving it a second thought. I remember the fireman asking Will if there was anyone in the house when he admitted to being the owner. If any connection had been made, if the van had led them to Will, then surely the story would have ended there?

Finished it last night.

Overall I liked the book. The story was original. The writing was really good. I liked the scenes. And the book was paced really well.

Caleb's style is dark and depressing. And with this story it mostly works. But sometimes it seemed like too much. Almost like Gordon said, he was trying to make it something it wasn't? I don't know. It's a small criticism. It's a first book. And for a first book, it's great.

My only other real criticism is the obvious typos and grammar errors due to the editing. They are pretty distracting in some places. I had to read a lot of sentences over until I figured out what he was going for. If I was Caleb, I would be pissed.

Not necessarily. William could've claimed memory loss or shock, and thus the reason he just "walked away" from the scene of the accident, decided to go home when his memory or whatever came back, and there he finds his house on flames. And seeing that Julie's not dead, he could post bail, or even better -Mrs. Rose could post his bail, and then More Story!

But what am I even talking about? Nothing to do with the reality of the book, eh? ahahaha

1. If you would like William to go to jail, turn to page 403.
2. If you would like for William to find out that the fire department works for Mrs. Rose, turn to page 409.

ahahaha

By the way I got to the part with the Doll -that was fucked up.

Will post more later.

Yeah it really takes a minute to realize what's really going on with the doll. And then it's pretty much horrifying.

#2 - Which images or scenes stick out to you?

The part about the baby being a girl. My little girl means more to me than anything. Just hit that's all

I am wondering, based mostly on Basic's post above this, whether being a parent (particularly of a young child I guess) is making this book hard for anyone? I mean it's pretty brutal in some of it's philosophy.

Me, I'm not a parent, nor do I care to be. I don't want personal crap to weigh this discussion down more than it has to, and I am certainly not trying to offend anybody, but I will go far as to say I honestly believe that people's eagerness to breed at a young age is a major downfall in human nature. It scares me a little how easily people seem to gamble with the quality of their own life by creating a new one before they are truly ready.

Did this make it easier for me to get alongside Will and his nutjob cult leader?

I know Caleb said he didn't want to get too involved in this thread right away, but I would be interested to hear what he thinks about this.

I also fall into that "not a parent, nor do I care to be" category, and the kid stuff didn't hit me that hard...perhaps for that exact reason.

I know Caleb isn't one to consider target audiences per se. He writes what he writes and worries about "who it's for" or "the intended audience" later, but this does get me thinking about if this book leans more towards the parent crowd since those are the people who will yield the most response to the work.

He wrote this before he had a kid (I'm happy to report the baby survived, and according to adorable photographic evidence, loves whiskey and neo-noir fiction — haha), but I think it's a reasonable assumption that some of the author's own apprehension about fatherhood influenced the book's outlook, even if exaggerated to Palahniuk-ian proportions.

Even as a non-parent, I didn't sympathize with Will much (though still enjoyed reading about him) until he started interacting with the other strangers and Mrs. Rose's agenda became more clear and you could sense a distinction between their ideologies that humanized Will more. I guess it's sorta like in Heathers where Veronica wants Heather #1 out of her life, J.D. kills Heather, but Veronica's all, "I didn't want her dead..." Lame comparison, but you get the idea.

Hey guys,

There's an article on The Nervous Breakdown about the book. Check it out: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/cjross/2011/05/in-defense-of-stranger...

Read the nervous breakdown piece and found this to be interesting: "In Stranger Will the main character slowly learns that in order to be mentally and emotionally free he must accept being controlled."

Very interesting.

Also, it's spoiler free which was great. I'm not quite finished with the book but reading this article definitely adds or gives me more to think about.

Hey let me ask you guys something. Y'all were talking about not wanting to be parents, but none of y'all mentioend your mates.

Do you find yourselves in a situation where your woman or partner desires offspring whereas you could live without it?

Know this is somewhat personal, but it relates to the book or the situation that the main character is facing toward the beginning, and then I ask since it came up.

My girlfriend is against having kids more than I am.

It's the opposite with me. My girlfriend is terrified of kids. lol She says she wants them eventually, but she's terrified of raising a child.

I want kids pretty bad. I love them. I think it would be so awesome having a child.

I'm somewhere in between. My wife wants 'em more than I do (she doesn't know that, though), and I'm all for the cool experience of having a child. I seriously am, but then again I wouldn't lose sleep if she woke up one day and decided she didn't want kids after all.

I know it's selfish but I just get concerned that raising children will interfere with the time and headspace I currently devote to writing. But seeing how many writers out there have children, that's probably ridiculous of me to even worry about.

Speaking to the book, though -it seems to be more than a basic fear for William. He seems depressed -a major downer of a dude in the beginning, and seeing I haven't finished, I have 2 perspectives on it. He had gone to Mrs. Rose just to talk to before shit went down -he confides in her way more than he ever does in Philip. And so I'm wondering, was he just afraid of having a child, and then Mrs. Rose, slowly, but surely, played on that like a Sith Lord and brainwashed him?

Or were some of his dark thoughts and fears toward the beginning, Truly his, and he just met his "soulmate" so to speak in Mrs. Rose -just speaking to some of his thinking or philosophies.

See, at first I thought it came from his job and having to clean up the blood stains, but the more I'm thinking... How much did Mrs. Rose trigger? 'Cause he talks about the things she's said to him, but still he seems to have clear ideas as a result of his profession.

And this might all be a waste to those who've finished and have a clear answer to that, but if it's left in the air by the story's end, it's an interesting thought that's been going through my mind lately. Was he manipulated into his thinking? Or was he one storm that met another -making the Perfect Storm? Maybe both, eh?

Look, I hate to post more so soon but I came across some cool and super relevant passages that have a lot to do with what’s said about “control” at The Nervous Breakdown .

Not sure how to reference for those without page numbers, but check out pages 130-131.

It’s the scene where Mrs. Rose and William come face to face with each other at the playground after he kills Sheila’s birds.

She says “Context is everything, and if we learn to ride with it, isn’t that perfection?”

And before that she says: “It might be years from now that these kids look back and realize that they’ve been controlled their entire lives, but it will happen. They might hate me, you, and all the others, but they will understand control –they will realize their life.”

Something else that struck me funny and cool was if you notice, earlier in the book when Eugene and William are talking about Mrs. Rose, Eugene mentions how “she’s nice” and William responds, “She can be.”

And here in this scene with William and Mrs. Rose, William says about Eugene “he’s a good kid,” and she responds, “He can be.”

Creepy, eh? ahahaha

Also speaking to what I was talking about in my previous post, William says this to Mrs. Rose “I might lose some weight or grow a real beard but above it all I’m just a piece of something greater. You taught me that.” He goes on… “You’re the one who told me there is no such thing as finality.”

Reminds of Batman Begins –the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Ra's al Ghul –I really dig how it turns out she “controls” the entire area, too, and that it’s been that way for generations, passed down. That little detail right there made the story again for me, just speaking to Mrs. Rose. ‘Cause for awhile –especially after the wreck –she started to come across as borderline silly with all of her philosophy and the fact that she was going out of her way to maneuver so many things. But now it all makes sense.

God I wish we had more people like you that would participate in the book clubs. Your enthusiasm is just awesome.

I also wish that I would let my mind analyze so much while reading...

Well I'm not quite sure what to say to that -Thanks for the kind words -Believe it or not I don't participate that often, unfortunately. Guess I'm making up for lost time because I take a lot of the writing intensives and those keep me occupied and away.

Love to read a good book, though, and this particular one seemed to get high praise from sources I trust, plus it's brand new, and Hey I finished last night, by the way.

Let me ask you something, Pete -because I saw in your earlier post that you finished too.

(SPOILER ALERT for anyone else)

Were you disappointed at all in the outcome of Eugene? I'm not talking about the way it was handled or written or anything -I just mean from an emotional perspective. I was expecting William to save him, and I like how the end result was unpredictable, but still, it was actually very sad. Heart breaking, no?

At least when you participate - you really participate (more so than I can say for myself). You should think about leading a discussion one day.

As for Eugene...
I think that what happened was what had to happen. And Eugene seemed like the most likable character in the whole book. So, yeah, I found it incredibly sad. I was disappointed that it wasn't confirmed. It got mentioned, with internal dialogue, and then forgotten. I just wish it would have even been mentioned one more time.

That actually sounds like fun -How do you go about doing that?

And yeah Eugene was tragic for me. Said I would respond to earlier comments too, and I see that Eugene came up. Agree that he was crucial in how I ended up seeing William -I started feeling like William was getting a second chance to be a "parent" here, and that his changed perspective would push him in that direction with his fiance, but... He did the "responsible" thing in the end I guess, eh?

The fact that he just rolled up on Mrs. Rose like that was cool but I wasn't sure if it would be that easy. Not saying it was completely unbelievable or had any negative impact, but I figured by that point she would have some protection around her -Unless of course she thought William was dead. Or, arrogance. Doubting him, you know?

Tell me you're interested! lol

We need to start adding books to the list. Next round of books I add - find one you'd be interested in leading.

Yeah sure I'm definitely interested -where do I find the list?

Were you disappointed at all in the outcome of Eugene? I'm not talking about the way it was handled or written or anything -I just mean from an emotional perspective. I was expecting William to save him, and I like how the end result was unpredictable, but still, it was actually very sad. Heart breaking, no?

Hmm interesting. See, I never really expected Will to save him. Maybe it was because the tone was so bleak from the outset, but I wasn't shocked at all. Saddened yes, but not surprised.

Seems everyone agrees that Eugene is a powerful factor in this story. So, in the spirit of speculation, how much deeper do you think Will would have dug if he hadn't ever met our young pal?

Also

@ Claudelives The list is in the book club forum mate, the thread is http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000029/six-months-of-book-club-books

@ PGoutis, when are you planning to pick the next batch of books? There are only two left on your list now.

Great -Thanks! I'll post any questions or comments about book club in that thread.

Not sure how much deeper Will would have dug. Hard to tell -Seems he was already weary of Mrs. Rose before meeting Eugene, and he never developed an "attachment" to the strangers, so my guess is that he would've split town. What's keeping him there? Julie? That whole relationship was dead before their baby was. Which I thought was handled well, by the way -the resolution between those two.

But yeah, I see William as someone who would've either off'd himself or left town -only he didn't tend to demonstrate any suicidal tendencies.

With Julie out of the picture, their baby dead, their house burned down, the cops looking for him, Mrs. Rose losing her appeal -seems like the rational thing to do, you know? And of course that's all speculation but I don't see him digging any deeper as much as running. Eugene changed everything for him.

Not necessarily because of the Eugene thing, but I could see Philip getting a call in the middle of the night, and the mess that he has to clean up is Will. That would be a tempting ending. Maybe after Will had somehow redeemed himself but then got killed by strangers or something.

See I felt like they were going to get a call and it was going to be Eugene!

Start posting recommendations in that thread and we'll come up with a few more months worth of books.

Though it is only halfway through the month, I want to jump in and comment on a bit of the discussion. I'll come back toward the end of the month.

First, let me say that this discussion that has been going on, this talk about my work, wow, this is honestly, and I don't exaggerate at all, exactly what I hope for when I write. I owe each of you a dozen beers. If we ever meet, hold me to that.

This ‘perspective meshing’ was a happy accident. The original few drafts of the novel were written entirely in first-person perspective. What I discovered after those first drafts was that first-person perspective tuned my intended bleakness into nihilism. The magic of first-person is the ability to relay sensory details through the character. This means that the character can (and often does) have an opinion on everything; otherwise, why would the narrative point it out. This gives off a very intimate feel that, considering Stranger Will's abortion and apathy theme, came across heavy-handed. Third-person allowed just the right amount of distance for sympathy to swell into empathy.

Since Stranger Will, I have experimented with more of this very, very close third person perspective. I like it. I hope to use it more in the future.

The bridge was rickety for me as well. When I wrote the first drafts of the book, I didn't have a kid and honestly didn't have much of a desire for one. Using children as the basis of the central metaphor for the book came about not because I held any specific animosity toward children but because children were so far from my life at the time.

My boy, now two years old, was born during that strange time from final draft to published book. That window of time, where I could have pulled the plug on publication if I felt it absolutely necessary was trying for me. Should I stop publication and avert any associating the philosophies of Mrs. Rose with my own? Or should I move forward with publication and let readers debate. I’m really glad (so far) that I took the latter route.

That being said, I am happy that I wrote this book when I did. Stranger Will would have been impossible to write as a new parent. I could never write a sequel (unless it was something like Strangerer Will: The Legend of Curly’s Mold).

Mrs. Rose’s thoughts regarding the futile nature of idealism makes a lot of sense to me. I can see the logic in her idea that a child's role--as far as the human species is concerned--is to get one step closer to an ideal (yes, this belief and her previous contradict; thus much of the conflict of the novel).

Deciding exactly how much emphasis to put on the belief systems was a difficult determination to make. Some readers feel the philosophizing came off heavy-handed. Some wanted more. In the end, I had to do right by the characters. Mrs. Rose, the antagonist, is a teacher by trade and, let's say, an entrepreneur of the human spirit, by passion so I felt comfortable letting her proselytize.

&

Shelia was a difficult character to integrate properly into the novel. She is important as a fulcrum to support and extend the conflict between William and Mrs. Rose, but at the same time isn't so integral as to support any more page space than I gave her. There is a definite transition with her character, from the quiet body found almost dead in an abandoned basement to the talkative follower of Mrs. Rose.

There is one line in the book, something about Shelia not wanting Mrs. Rose to find out that she may have actually wanted to keep her latest child (the child she later stitches together to make a doll), which I think hinted at Shelia’s possible abandonment of Mrs. Rose’s teachings. But ultimately, she comes back into the fold. I think this happens really as a reaction to her hatred for William more than anything.

There is a fair amount of this. But I hope to get away with it due to Mrs. Rose’s profession as a teacher. Part of her nature is to proselytize. She deals primarily with elementary school children (which is where the directness of her teaching comes from) but works with adults also (which is where her grander ideas have audience).

Furley, you and I have had talks about this outside of the forums too. I really love the way Chuck will stretch a small idea until it is capable of representing entire ideologies. In much the same way the car game in Rant could never work on a full city level (with insurance companies, police officials, and let’s not forget the holidays when every car on the street may be decorated for Christmas), Mrs. Rose’s strangers could never work in a town any bigger than Brackenwood.

But Furley, you’re what I need to keep the soapboxing in check. Without you, I would somehow make a single turd represent AIDS in Africa.

This suspension of disbelief was difficult to maintain without opening the novel to 1,000 more questions regarding the practicality of what Mrs. Rose does. There is a small line during the exchange between William and the cop (with Mrs. Rose at his side) where the cop hands William a note that give him three pieces of advice (1. work on the tears, 2. Less melodrama, 3. Put up a few more pictures of your fiancée). I hoped that this would be enough to clue the reader into the idea that the police in Brackenwood are part of Mrs. Rose’s “army.” Though, I didn’t want to dwell on this too much because, again, it would open up far more questions that would potentially derail the main point of the novel.

This is the exact kind of conversation I’ve dreamed of being had around my books. As far as I am concerned, I could never write another thing and still be happy. Thank you, sir.
As Furleyguy correctly assumes above, William is exploring some of the same questions I had pre-child. I didn’t understand having children at such a young age (at the time I wrote the first draft, I was 21). I didn’t understand why so many people considering children an ultimate goal, one that should be striven for above so many other wonderful options in life.

I will say that much of William’s transition mimics my own in that I learned to embrace apathy as a coping mechanism (before I found Zoloft). Strangely, what Mrs. Rose preaches about apathy is what helped me to see not the futility in trying to attain perfection in my real life, but helped me to see the futility in believing that perfection is something worth worrying about to begin with. Once I accepted that, as coined in the great early 90s apathy series, “Life Goes On,” life does in fact go on, I didn’t feel so smothered by choices.

Wow, this was exactly my apprehension with having kids. It was weird at the time because I didn’t have a book published and certainly had no writing career to speak of, so though putting this non-persona in front of possible parenthood was important, it still sounded silly when I tried to verbalize it for my wife.

I will say that I still get about the same amount of writing done now as I did without the kid. I have found that what little time I have, I use to its absolute fullest, where before I might have wasted time watching TV.

A bit of both, I think. At the start of the book, William already knew Mrs. Rose (though the reader doesn’t realize this until the end of chapter five), so it is difficult to divide Mrs. Rose’s influence from William’s native philosophies. My opinion is that William would have never acted the way he did (going so far as to kill his child, even if technically on accident) had he not met Mrs. Rose.

I love that you picked up on this. The wording here, though subtle, is important. The word “can” especially, as if saying that each person has the potential of being praised (as in, “he could be”) but the text doesn’t make any blatant assertions.

I think her being so easily killed here is an admission that she herself is not perfect. It almost feels as though she finally found a student (Will) who could go beyond her own ideologies, but at the same time play right into them. Perhaps we are looking more at John Doe from Seven than Tyler Durden.

I think William would have continued down his path to become just another stranger. Eugene is the true fulcrum of the story, I think. It is like Will’s entire perception of parenthood was changed by a playing the role as parent for just a few afternoons. So the lessen, I suppose, is that those of you who don’t ever want kids, babysit one for a few nights before you totally say no.

I actually considered this ending for a moment. But ultimately, I didn’t think the story deserved to be Philip’s story. I would feel like a bastard to turn the story so dramatically after having invested so much into William.

Good stuff, Caleb! And hey I Did enjoy your book, so thanks for the read -I'll post more thoughts and questions as they come.

Think when my future son or daughter approaches me and asks, "Daddy, where did I come from?" -I'll hand over my copy of Stranger Will and say, "Just be thankful you got here."

That's blurb-worthy.