“I’m not very good at this.”
“At what?”
“You.”
“You’re very good at me. Maybe the best of all.”
The video above is one of my favorite examples of a murmuration, a flock of starlings that number in the thousands that fly together in what should be chaos, but ends up like a dance. I’ve seen one, once, early in the morning when the sun was just rising, and I was just stupid with awe, not even thinking about taking any photos, much less recording a video.
It’s enchanting, and strangely humbling in ways that I don’t that I can describe very well. I felt small when I saw it, realizing just how insignificant problems can seem when faced with something extraordinary.
And when I started out writing my last novel of the year, I always knew it’d be called Murmuration. To me, aside from the immense beauty of the flock, it reminds me of how the mind must look, with thoughts and feelings running through it all at once. What we think and feel at any given day is extraordinarily complex. The way the brain works, synapses firing, electrical impulses crawling along gray matter, is chaos, but it too ends up like a complicated dance.
That’s what I wanted Murmuration to be. Dancing chaos.
I wanted it–the dancing chaos–to be in the language too, the text. I love words. God, do I love words. (My editor will agree with this, most likely muttering that I like all the words.) I love the power that they have, how a specific combination of words can make people smile, or laugh, or cry. (Or curse my name.) My biggest goal as a writer is…well, to not become a master of words, per se, because that notion is just ridiculous. But I do want to write in such a way that will leave people thinking how unexpected it is, what they’ve just read. I don’t know that I’m there yet, but I think I can do it.
This book will divide my readership, I think. You will either like it or hate it. I don’t know if there will be any middle ground. And that’s actually a good thing. Because strong feelings one way or another are better than apathy.
On October 28th, I hope to make you smile. And laugh. And cry. And rage, rage, rage, because in this, my last novel of 2016, I aim to push the boundaries of what you know to be real and what you think is impossible.
Blurb:
In the small mountain town of Amorea, it’s stretching toward autumn of 1954. The memories of a world at war are fading in the face of a prosperous future. Doors are left unlocked at night, and neighbors are always there to give each other a helping hand.
The people here know certain things as fact:
Amorea is the best little town there is.
The only good Commie is a dead Commie.
The Women’s Club of Amorea runs the town with an immaculately gloved fist.
And bookstore owner Mike Frazier loves that boy down at the diner, Sean Mellgard. Why they haven’t gotten their acts together is anybody’s guess. It may be the world’s longest courtship, but no one can deny the way they look at each other.
Slow and steady wins the race, or so they say.
But something’s wrong with Mike. He hears voices in his house late at night. There are shadows crawling along the walls, and great clouds of birds overhead that only he can see.
Something’s happening in Amorea. And Mike will do whatever he can to keep the man he loves.
Pre-Order links:
I said almost the exact same thing in a comment to a friend. Either you’ll love it or hate it, there won’t be any middle ground. I’m on the love side. This book has inspired many long conversations already. I thought it was brilliant!