Thomas Mullen

Two months out, and good reviews are still coming, which is great to see. Yesterday the Boston Globe, home of the nation's finest Sports section, gave the book a strong review. (No idea whether they deliberately waited for Easter Sunday to run their review of a book about resurrections. But it makes you wonder.)

Interestingly, one of the adjectives the Globe used in the first paragraph of the review was "rollicking." This is at least the fourth review to call the book rollicking. It's a cool word, and I'll gladly take it. Jess Walter used it in his blurb for the back cover, so maybe he planted the seed in the reviewers' heads. Then again, some reviewers get advance copies of the book before it's been adorned with blurbs, so they might not have been influenced by Jess' snazzy word choice. The book just rollicks, apparently.

You don't often see that word applied to literature. Books are often called moving, stunning, heartrending. They "signal the arrival of an important new voice in fiction," or are the "exciting" work of "a writer to watch," etc. But I seldom see them described as rollicking. The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers may well be 2010's most-often-described-as-rollicking book. I'm honored.

I looked up the official definition, just for fun. According to the inestimable dictionary.com, rollicking (adj) means "carefree and joyous." It also means "swaggering, boisterous."

I wouldn't think a book set in the Great Depression--one that details a family's financial decline and the death of a loved one--could be carefree, but I'm glad that people disagree. I did try quite hard to make sure the book, which details quite a bit of hardship, did not descend into torpor or overly depressing bathos. And "joyous"--who doesn't want their art to be joyous? "Swaggering" is usually used to describe a football team on a winning streak, and "boisterous" too is decidedly unliterary. Norman Mailer was swaggering and boisterous, and maybe early Philip Roth, but that's about it. Rappers are swaggering and boisterous. Not so much literary fiction. Again, I'm psyched to have appropriated a word from hip-hop reviews into my own.

"Rollick," for those of you wondering, is a verb meaning "to move or act in a carefree, frolicsome manner; behave in a free, hearty, gay, or jovial way." I like to think of myself as rather jovial and frolicsome, and I'm glad to hear that this translates into my books.

Also of note: "rollickingness" is a word.

I will do my best to make sure that my next novel has as much rollickingness as Firefly Brothers.

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While on my book tour I had the pleasure of doing a number of radio and even television interviews to promote The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers. A few of the interviews can be seen or heard online, so I'm posting the links below.

Here in Atlanta I spoke to Valerie Jackson for her awesome books program "Between The Lines." I saw a list of all the great authors she'd interviewed in the past (such as Toni Morrison) and I asked her, after the interview, "So am I sitting in the same seat Toni Morrison sat in?" She hesitated, perhaps remembering a recent office relocation or something, and I said, "Just say yes." Valerie graciously smiled and said, "Yes." Thanks for making me feel like I belong in such a pantheon of great writers, Valerie!

While in Cleveland I stopped by WCPN Cleveland's "Around Noon" with Dee Perry. Added musical bonus -- after me they interviewed the amazing Avett Brothers, one of my favorite bands. Alas their interview was pre-taped, so I didn't get to meet them in the studio.

KARE TV in Minneapolis' "Showcase Minnesota" gave me my first taste of live television, as I spoke to cohost Corbin Seitz about the book. I tried not to be too distracted by the delicious-smelling Indian food that some celebrity chef was preparing on the kitchen set off camera.

I also spoke with "Minnesota Public Radio's" Euan Kerr, who put a uniquely St. Paul, MN, spin on some aspects of the book. (St. Paul was a haven for criminals during the Great Depression.)

And coming soon from Georgia Public Broadcasting will be my interview on "Cover to Cover" with Frank Reiss, owner of A Capella Books (and a neighbor of mine). (This wasn't up last I checked but should be there soon, as it aired last week.)

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I'm trying to catch up with that wild and crazy "social marketing" thing, and I was just updating my author profile on Goodreads.com. It asks for basic biographical detail on the author: first it asked for my city of birth, then my date of birth. And then it asked for my date of death. Whoa. OK, I guess I understand that this is intended for all sorts of authors, living and dead. Nonetheless: how to answer? Should I predict when I'll die? Make something up?

I chose to leave it blank for now.


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Just returned from trips to Seattle and Denver. Seattle is always fun to visit because a) it rocks, b) it has lots of great coffeeshop for me to work in, and get entirely too caffeinated in, c) I have had uncommonly good luck with weather there -- once again, it was spectacularly beautiful during my stay, and "the mountains were out," and d) because my first novel was set in Washington state, people seem to like me there. I had a great time meeting bookstore folks and readers, many of whom had kind things to say about The Last Town on Earth. Here's hoping they still feel that way after they read The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers!

Denver was interesting. (And I won't bore you with my travel adventure getting there, the all-day delay and cancellation in the Atlanta airport, my finally flying to the wrong city just so I could get to Colorado somehow, my renting a car to drive to Denver very late at night, etc -- those stories are never as interesting to other people as they are to you).

I was in Denver first of all for the annual First Year Experience conference, a meeting of college professors, deans, and administrators who help organize their respective schools' Freshmen Orientation weekends. Because more and more schools are doing the One Book thing, in which they assign one book to all incoming freshmen so they'll all have something to talk about when they show up on campus, Random House hosts a luncheon at the conference. I was one of five featured authors, basically there to pitch our books and explain why we think it would be a great choice for their schools. If you ever doubted that writers had to be salespeople too, doubt no longer.

It was sort of like literary speed-dating, as each author had 12 minutes on stage to do our thing. (We were timed.) It was fun, though, and a great way to meet readers and potential readers. And it was an honor to be a part of such a distinguished panel; the other authors were civil rights pioneer Carlotta Walls LaNier, whose new memoir, A Mighty Long Way chronicles her experience integrating a high school in Little Rock, with National Guardsmen and angry locals surrounding her; Dana Canedy, whose memoir, A Journal for Jordan, tells the story of her husband, a soldier who was killed in Iraq and who left behind a journal of fatherly advice for their son, then 6 months old; Bill Strickland, a MacArthur genius-grantee, whose book Make the Impossible Possible explains his philosophy in building arts training centers in inner-city neighborhoods; and Warren St. John, whose Outcasts United tells the tale of a youth soccer team (set in Clarkston, GA, just down the road from my house) comprised exclusively of war refugees from numerous countries. Warren's is the only one of those books I've read thus far (loved it), but the others sound great. I was the only novelist up there, and I didn't quite feel worthy of being up there with people who have lived such amazing stories -- I merely make mine up! But I may never again sit at table with such a distinguished and varied group of writers.

I was at the conference promoting Last Town, and then it was on to radio stations and bookstores to talk about my new book, Firefly Brothers. A crazy day. Let's just say that even my limited experience with book tours has given me a new appreciation for why so many rock musicians become drug addicts or alcoholics -- the stresses of travel, the weird eating schedules, the adrenaline highs and stresses and sudden crashes all take some getting used to. Um, not that I'm recommending drugs or alcohol or anything. (I do have a writer friend who insists he needs a drink before he can get on stage, but personally, I don't think that would work for me. Especially on the West Coast, when I'm already jetlagged and sleepy.)

OK, home n ATL for today, then tomorrow it's off to the snowy Midwest -- first Cleveland, then Minneapolis. The adventure continues...

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I was in a bookstore a few days ago and I saw my book on display in between "new" books by Vladimir Nabokov (died, 1977) and Kurt Vonnegut (died, 2007). Flattering, absolutely. But also: hmmm, a novel about two characters who die but come back to life sandwiched between two newly published books by writers who are actually dead.

Which brings up a related observation: I've noticed that The New Yorker, exemplar of fine writing, has rather enjoyed publishing dead novelists of late. Off the top of my head, I can recall short stories by Roberto Bolano (twice), Nabokov, John Updike, David Foster Wallace (twice), and William Styron being published in its pages over the last year. Considering that the magazine publishes roughly 50 works of fiction annually, that means about 14 percent of The New Yorker's "new" fiction has been written by dead people. Now, again, I'm a big New Yorker fan. I'm down with Eustace Tilley. But I'm a tad concerned. Perhaps the rumors are true: literature is dead.

Can't wait to see those new Salinger stories!


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