Stranger Will - Book Club May '11

Hi Caleb, that post was an interesting read, good answers all of them.

And by the way, cheers for the cool copy of Charactered Pieces. I have to mention that one story The Camp.

I have read four or five collections this year so far, plus dozens of short stories online and The Camp is easily in the top three.

Aww, i'm blushing. Seriously, thank you.

Yes, a very big thanks to Caleb for stopping by and clarifying some points.

Here are a couple other things to think about:

Are we noticing any themes or major trends in this book?

Also, is there a message, so to speak?

Been thinking about this one since I saw the post, and still not sure about it...

There's a scene where Will says "I don't know what I believe anymore." -and I'm paraphrasing here, but if I can think of anything, it's

1) We all don't know shit until someone else becomes priority one, meaning a child as in the case with Will and Eugene, or someone else to care for in the sense of Philip and Shiela -just anyone who makes us see outside of ourselves. That enlightenment cannot come through selfishness.

2) We all want someone to care for -Or even maybe, we all Want be cared For. Even Mrs. Rose, sick and twisted as she is, has her network of "strangers," or "pupils" -she takes to Will in almost a motherly way. The mentor/apprentice relationship resembles the parent/child bond in a lot of ways.

3) I had wanted to say something about Death -just because it's a recurrent issue -the whole stain of it, the inevibility of it, but I haven't put it together just yet. The thoughts are there in my head, but not in the form of a concrete statement. Just maybe that Death is no reason to keep yourself from Living. You know a true adult, or a true parent cares for and raises their young -they don't abandon them. What good is anything you know if you're not passing it on?

Thoughts from anyone else?

And I did have some general questions for Caleb about Eugene -Was he dead from day one, or had you ever envisoned him living at some earlier point?

Eugene seems to represent the "the inevitable death" or "stain" that Will fears and has to confront -like he Has to experience the loss of Eugene to Truly See what he lost as a father to his own child, but was it also a karma/punishment type of deal, meaning "A car accident and walking away from a baby you've never met? Oh no, you don't get off That easy. You have to face this loss" -kind of thing?

I missed this months book... but, I went to Amazon to get June's book "We are Oblivion" by Michael Sonbert and found that the Kindle version is only 99 cents right now!

You can join in on a discussion any time you want. If you miss it during the month, and read the book later, just go here to find the thread:

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000029/list-of-past-book-club-books

Also - it is pretty kick ass of Sonbert to put it up for 99 cents right?

I like this. Honestly, I didn't consider this perspective, but it makes sense. I think William believes that he is, if anything, looking outside of himself when he falls into the believe of child-bearing as a selfish endeavor. But, it is strange that it is not until he meets Eugene that he is actually able to rationally think outside of himself. Yeah, I like this.

Yes, yes. This is where I was going. Mrs. Rose, for all of her professional caring (as a principal) and social caring (as in the leader of the strangers) holds a strange belief that caring for another being, sculpting that person into her mode of thought, is actually futile. Yet, she needs it, thrives on it. This is her internal conflict, and one that permeates the novel.

Mrs. Rose would say that the absence of anything good to pass on is exactly why you should be alive and should give birth and raise children.

He was dead from the beginning. I needed him to die, to pull at the heart strings, to keep William honest. Otherwise, if William were to save him, the novel would seem to have a strangely happy ending (Julie and William adopt Eugene, raise him, happily ever after). But the circumstances didn't qualify for a happy ending. I think the theme of the novel, a struggle with death, would have been too easily resolved if Eugene survives, and dare I say, you amazing contributions (and others' amazing contributions) to this book discussion wouldn't have happened.

He was dead from the beginning. I needed him to die, to pull at the heart strings, to keep William honest. Otherwise, if William were to save him, the novel would seem to have a strangely happy ending (Julie and William adopt Eugene, raise him, happily ever after). But the circumstances didn't qualify for a happy ending. I think the theme of the novel, a struggle with death, would have been too easily resolved if Eugene survives, and dare I say, you amazing contributions (and others' amazing contributions) to this book discussion wouldn't have happened.

I agree about Eugene needing to die. This was one story that for me, would have been very much weakened by too happy an ending.

Will saving Eugene would have just been... too much?

I'm not sure exactly how best to say it(darn my lack of Claudelives' discussional eloquence!) but I think there'd be no way to have Will save Eugene without it completely dominating the end of the book, and without reducing from the impact of Wills change in character.

Eugene was a huge part of the story, and everyone seems to like his character, but the book is called Stranger Will, the ending needed to be all Will. Him shooting Rose is the happy ending, the cutting of the cord between Will and Old Will.

He is pretty much born again by the end of the book. He's a new character. It's harsh on the lad but Eugene had to die for this birth to fill out the end of the book in the way it needed to.

Or something like that.

*

In other news, my mother finally read this and told me what she though about it. She liked the pigeon network, and she commented on the strange twilight zone style feel that the town has going for it, the disconnected feeling.

But she said I had to tell you that you were really mean on Julie. She said she felt rather sorry for her after it was all over.

She wasn't too bothered by the whole kid-killing theme, but then my mother is pretty hardcore.

Good stuff –got me thinking.

And thank you, Caleb, for weighing in on all of that –some great insight there and it’s appreciated.

I first encountered Stranger Will many moons ago, and it's been quite awhile since I read it -- my guess is that it's gone through several iterations of editing, in fact.

To get my favorite part out of the way -- I straight up loved the carrier pigeons. Such a great concept -- of the 'damn, wish I thought of that' variety.

I remember the writing being very solid. Again, this was at an early stage, so some editing was definitely still required -- but it was very evident to me that Caleb is very talented. It's sad to hear there were some significant typos in the final release - SW and Caleb deserve better.

WickedVoodoo wrote:
"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."

I found it a pretty brutal read, and I've got some pretty thick skin. Hubert Selby Jr. comes to mind -- his books tend to be downward spirals with no light at the end of the tunnel and I find his books difficult to get through. I'm an extremely hopeful and idealistic person, so at times it's like getting hit repeatedly in the stomach, and it's why reading SW took far longer for me than it should have. That said, this isn't a criticism in and of itself - Selby happens to be one of my favorite authors. Perhaps then, it was the specific content at hand that really affected me -- in SW's case, procreation and it's related philosophical issues.

I had no such issue with the narrator's occupation. Gore is gore, and doesn't normally affect me. In fact, I have a short list of books that had scenes which managed to turn my stomach (The Wasp Factory is, surprisingly, at #1-and a favorite book of mine). I consider this a badge of honor -- I absolutely love anything that gets my skin to crawl because it's really, really difficult to do. SW is on that list. So I think I can safely say that it wasn't his occupation, or even the general demeanor of the book -- but rather his specific take on fatherhood that so disturbed me and made it such a difficult read.

We're coming up on the end of the month so I wanted to throw up a couple of more questions to stir up the pot on the discussion again:

Caleb is for the most part a resident of The Velvet. Do you see similarities between his writing and that of Clevenger, Jones, and Baer? If so, what?

Is Stranger Will an example of transgressive, neo-noir, or literary? Support your opinion.

As some of you know, Caleb is blog touring to promote this novel. Is this an effective promotional method or would you rather see something else?

At some point in the future, I will have the opportunity to ask Caleb some questions about Stranger Will as well as his upcoming projects. Any questions you guys think I should ask?

I saw much more of a Palahniuk influence that a Velvety one. He uses language very efficiently and with lots of bodily description, which is a hallmark of both. While it was very dark thematically, I wouldn't call it noir or neo-noir, but transgressive, yes. And capital-L "literary"'s one of those words that polarizes people . . . yes, in that it doesn't fall into a specific genre otherwise. I often prefer to just call such things "general fiction," but "literary" also implies (to my definition) that just as much emphasis is placed on the quality of the prose and character development as it is the plot, which is also the case here.

I hate all these new categories. In my eyes this was just literature... But I must be crazy.

Also I feel like he was carrying a lot of Chuck's themes. As for writing style / prose - it was a mix of all of them, Caleb has his own voice.

Agreed -more of a Palahniuk influence than anything. Baer and Clevenger did not come to mind. Also agree that even with the Palahniuk influence, he has his own voice. A few comments earlier in the month mentioned his effective use of 3rd person and how well it read -that's a little bit of what I"m referring to -that's a testament to his writing skill and his voice.

The genre? I'm with Pete on that one and here's where my ignorance will start to show -Because I still have no idea what neo-noir really is. I've read several "neo-noir" books but I don't fully get what that term means -at first I thought with Transubstantiate, it was the mixing of crime and new reality (the future, science fiction -whatever -a kind of Literary Blade Runner for today's age if you will), but then I read Stay God, and it's pretty modern with nothing supernatural involved. Didn't see what separated it from just Noir. But...

Hard pressed with a gun to my head, I'd agree again with Pete and Gordon too and say Literary. I know that "literary" is somewhat of a bad word amongst writers, but I can't figure out why. Not sure why we're ashamed of it. "Literary" to me is far less pretentious than the million new labels that keep coming out.

However, if someone pitched the novel to me as Noir, or Horror, I wouldn't say that they're wrong. To support my opinion? I mean there's plenty of crime -the blood stains they clean up being a result, Mrs. Rose and her whole crime ring, the accident where the baby is killed, and then there are elements that you would find in a horror novel, like that whole Doll business, and again the way the baby was killed and buried. How they found Shiela.

The way he's promoting his book? I haven't yet had the pleasure of promoting a book so it's another area that I'm ignorant to, but I'd say whatever works, I'm happy to see work. Is the Blog Tour effective? Well I don't know for sure -I guess it can't hurt if even just 1 Reader sees the blog and buys the book, right?

I know The Cult's effective. No writer should ignore it as far as promotion goes. I've never heard of Caleb or Stranger Will until the excitment started building here last month, and since it's a trusted site, I bought the book.

But whatever you have to do in today's day and age, and more than that, do it All if you Can. There should be no shame in it, and no stone should be left unturned.

Questions to ask him: What's his next book about and is it almost finished? I know that question can come across wrong seeing he just released a book, but Chuck came up, and I've heard Chuck always has a book finished as one's coming out, so I'm just wondering if that's the situation here, where Caleb's already closed to finishing his next one? 'Cause based on Stranger Will, I would buy his next book.

And I guess that's all I have. Wanted to say how much I've enjoyed this month's book club -it was cool getting to talk to you all in depth about a novel. Hope it continues strong for the next selections -I know there's some excitement around next month's, so I'll look forward to participating in that and hope to see y'all there.

I'm going to be off the grid this weekend, so I want to make sure to address a few last questions and comments before heading out.

I'm not sure what genre it would be either. I've been calling it Noir, but only because that designation is so lose. It's been called Horror, too. Literary fits. Maybe Bodice Ripper? Or, at least the prequel would be...
The blog tour has been effective as far as getting my name out there. I don't know that I can correlate specific sales with specific blog posts (though, that would be kinda possible using Google Analytics). Mostly, it's a branding thing. I plan to do more of these as books are released, for sure. It has been draining as far as getting my own fiction writing done, but simply participating in the reading community is just as important, I think.
My next two books actually come out about the same time, this November. The books are I Didn't Mean to Be Kevin (a novel) and As a Machine and Parts (a novella). I also have a few more at varying states of completion. I hope you like them as much as Stranger Will (a few people I know say As a Machine and Parts is one of the best things I've written).
Thank you, seriously, for contributing to this discussion. And a bit thanks to everyone who participated, whether by contributing comments or just reading the comments. My main motivation for writing has always been to establish a dialog with readers. The Cult has allowed that to happen.

*raises hand*

Looking forward to those -and what a cool thing to have these books coming out in the same year. Congrats.

Today, Caleb J Ross has a guest post at my site, A Simple List of Writer Dos and Don’ts, as part of his Tour for Strange.

I've also got some other recent posts there myself (and a very large archive), slowly re-acclimating myself to this blogging thang.

If you’ve read Stranger Will, you will definitely want to see this!

http://www.calebjross.com/2011/10/if-youve-read-stranger-will-you-will-definitely-want-to-see-this/

During the preorder phase of Stranger Will (around January(ish) of 2011) I decided to do something special, as I try to do with all of my book preorders. With Stranger Will, the temptation to integrate the preorder extras into the thematic content of the book itself was obvious and too persistent to ignore. A large part of the book deals with the trade of messenger pigeon messages between a woman named Mrs. Rose and to-be parents who are, shall we say, less than excited about their coming children. What comes of these transactions is an intricate, yet intentionally misdirected, sales pitch designed to encourage the to-be parents to abort their pregnancies. Heavy stuff, I know.

I decided to use one of those exchanges presented in Stranger Will as a base for expanding the communication chain into a longer dialog between Mrs. Rose and a parent. What became of this is a 14-part, all dialog, short story titled “Noise” (the title should be understood by those who have read the book). The distilled version of this dialog can be found in chapter 22 of Stranger Will).

Here I present “Noise” in it’s entirety. If you have a copy of Stranger Will in hand, I recommend re-reading chapter 22 to get the full effect.