Gray Lake, the fictional location, is the crux, the backbone of a lot of my stories.
It's also the title of my first novel.
It was my thesis for my MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and though I’d written and published short stories since I was a teen, the book represented the first thirty-some years of my life, with the main characters representing a split between … shall we say the more straightedge and illicit sides of my life until then. (Thankfully, the upright citizen was winning by then.)
The ghostly incident the boys experience at the lake at the beginning of the book may or may not have happened to me and a friend at the real Gray Lake in my hometown. Or we might have imagined it. Or I might have. Or it might have been a trick of the fog. Who knows? (Except there was no fog that summer night. :-) )
Anyway, Gray Lake appears in lots of my stories ("The House on Gray Lake Estates," "Ghosts on the Way to Gray Lake"), as does its even spookier spiritual cousin in the purgatorial woods and swamps to the west, Lake Null (RETURN TO ANGEL HILL, PURGATORY BLUES, "Deliver The Gimp"), and I’ve returned to several of the book’s characters over and over again - people especially seem to like the bad guy, Mike Menger. There are a couple more stories about him out there, from both before and after the novel’s timeline, and more in the works ("Until Someone Loses," "Menger Bites the Bird"). Ol’ Menger’s one of my personal favorites too, like Clint Eastwood if Clint didn’t play such calm, well-adjusted, soft-spoken nerds.
So, to put it bluntly, Gray Lake came about mostly because I was at a point in my life where I wanted to come to terms with two aspects of my past - the bookish kid and self-destructive party guy. Like Bradbury did with sweet Will Holloway and his slightly darker buddy Jim Nightshade in Something Wicked This Way Comes, I expressed these sides through Iggy and Brian and let them go at their lives through the course of one summer while various criminal and supernatural (and hormonal) forces plague their town.
Is it a good idea to address criticisms? Probably not, but I rarely listen to my own advice, so I’ll say I was aware of the structure all along. Let me say this: Hang in there, kiddos. It’s a big novel with a ton of characters and a broad array of elements. I really wanted to challenge myself - and you. All the diverse pieces really do come together in a great big explosive ending.at the lake. You’ll see reviews that readers gave up because they didn’t see how everything could possibly come together. Tsk, tsk. O ye of little faith. Those who trust the author to pull it off report that - hey, he really does!
GRAY LAKE is available in ebook, print and audio formats. Amazon Audible iTunes
Like all my books, it's free via Kindle Unlimited.
It's also the title of my first novel.
It was my thesis for my MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and though I’d written and published short stories since I was a teen, the book represented the first thirty-some years of my life, with the main characters representing a split between … shall we say the more straightedge and illicit sides of my life until then. (Thankfully, the upright citizen was winning by then.)
The ghostly incident the boys experience at the lake at the beginning of the book may or may not have happened to me and a friend at the real Gray Lake in my hometown. Or we might have imagined it. Or I might have. Or it might have been a trick of the fog. Who knows? (Except there was no fog that summer night. :-) )
Anyway, Gray Lake appears in lots of my stories ("The House on Gray Lake Estates," "Ghosts on the Way to Gray Lake"), as does its even spookier spiritual cousin in the purgatorial woods and swamps to the west, Lake Null (RETURN TO ANGEL HILL, PURGATORY BLUES, "Deliver The Gimp"), and I’ve returned to several of the book’s characters over and over again - people especially seem to like the bad guy, Mike Menger. There are a couple more stories about him out there, from both before and after the novel’s timeline, and more in the works ("Until Someone Loses," "Menger Bites the Bird"). Ol’ Menger’s one of my personal favorites too, like Clint Eastwood if Clint didn’t play such calm, well-adjusted, soft-spoken nerds.
So, to put it bluntly, Gray Lake came about mostly because I was at a point in my life where I wanted to come to terms with two aspects of my past - the bookish kid and self-destructive party guy. Like Bradbury did with sweet Will Holloway and his slightly darker buddy Jim Nightshade in Something Wicked This Way Comes, I expressed these sides through Iggy and Brian and let them go at their lives through the course of one summer while various criminal and supernatural (and hormonal) forces plague their town.
Is it a good idea to address criticisms? Probably not, but I rarely listen to my own advice, so I’ll say I was aware of the structure all along. Let me say this: Hang in there, kiddos. It’s a big novel with a ton of characters and a broad array of elements. I really wanted to challenge myself - and you. All the diverse pieces really do come together in a great big explosive ending.at the lake. You’ll see reviews that readers gave up because they didn’t see how everything could possibly come together. Tsk, tsk. O ye of little faith. Those who trust the author to pull it off report that - hey, he really does!
GRAY LAKE is available in ebook, print and audio formats. Amazon Audible iTunes
Like all my books, it's free via Kindle Unlimited.