Substack IRL - Part 2
Hell or Hangover out now!
My debut novel Hell or Hangover is available for purchase (e-book or paperback) on Amazon! If you haven’t yet, order a copy, and then give a subscribe - the designer of this dope ass cover!
Here is what the legendary had to say about the novel:
“If Jay McInerney hailed from dirty north Jersey instead of genteel New England, worked within the 2010’s digital marketing hellscape instead of old media fact-checking, and wrote with zero whiny ploys for reader sympathy, he might have come up with something akin to Hell or Hangover. But he couldn’t have matched it since Alex Muka is, at base, a much better scribbler.”
Sorry Le Way - this blurb will live on in infamy. If you haven’t purchased The Wayback Machine I highly recommend you do and, if asked, I would write an equally scathing blurb because I fucking loved this book so much. Wayback and myself are both McInerney fans which is why this is all kosher. In the spirit of McInerney and his novel Bright Lights, Big City the below piece is written in the second person. Enjoy!
With trepidation, you walk into the house. One kid is hanging off the back of the couch, feet pressed up near the top, arms holding on for dear life, head upside down, hair like a Troll doll suspended in gravity.
“Hi, Daddy,” she says, smiling at you, lunacy in her eyes.
“How many times do I have to tell you don’t do that,” you hear from the other room. “This is exactly how you got that boo boo last time.”
Your wife is right but your daughter is like you. No matter how many times she gets hungover a boo boo, she doesn’t learn her lesson. You should probably get her off the back of the couch but she’s still smiling at you, hanging backwards, perfect in all her childish glory, and then she says, “Hi, Daddy” again and you can’t help but start laughing your ass off. You finally pick the three-year-old up, hold her upside down for a second or ten, flip her right side up, then kiss her cheeks until she begs you to stop.
With the same trepidation you entered your home with you turn the corner into the dining room where your wife is feeding the one-year-old. Both are covered in yogurt. Both look disheveled. One has the brightest smile on her face. Fat cheeks pinching her eyes shut, dimples the size of moon craters. The other looks like she has been taking cover fire in a WW1 trench.
How, at this particular moment, are you supposed to remind ask if you can go to Brooklyn tonight for a book reading? The balls on you for even thinking it. You should ditch your plans, stay home, help, but you’re a selfish son of a bitch. You have one single goal in mind. The same goal that’s been driving you up to the attic for 10 years to write every morning. The same goal that has kept you up countless nights. The goal, the story, that just won’t let go of you.
But how is this night in Brooklyn supposed to further that goal? This night won’t help you with your final edits. You know as good as anyone that you will not be getting up at 4 AM after a night out in Brooklyn. But still, that is what you’re thinking about. Even if you tell yourself you are going to meet up with
, or to meet the great , or to see again, or to hear what all the hubbub is about concerning ’s new novel, you are going to show face because of your novel. Selfish son of a bitch, indeed.You decide to trick yourself. You train your mind to say that you are going to be around like-minded people. You’ve lived 35 years outside of any real literary scene and now you finally have a chance to be around people who enjoy and write books. And you’ve gotten a taste. Just two nights ago you were in the Lower East Side rubbing elbows with real writers.
. Pearson. Barkan. You’re an addict now. You want to be around these people. Learn from them. Talk to them. Hear what they have to say about books and life. But this is all a trick. You are going because of your book. You selfish son of a bitch.Deep down you know all this as the words leave your lips.
“Can I still go to that thing in Brooklyn tonight?”
Your wife, with yogurt in her hair, gives you one of those looks that says your death is rapidly approaching. You deserve that look. And death by wife is as good an excuse as any for leaving Adam high and dry the one time he’s in NYC. But her face lightens. The crease between her eyes flattens. She knows how much this means to you. She wants you to be successful almost as much as you. And she knows why you’re going. She knows you’re a selfish son of a bitch and still loves you. This is why your book is dedicated to her. Because without her there is no book.
“You have to go,” she says. “But you better fucking help before you leave.”
And help you did. You played with the girls to give mommy a break, then you tried your best to get them in bed (mommy had to help a little), and you left for your trek to Brooklyn. This time, unlike the train ride to the Lower East Side two nights before saddled with two Modelo tallboys, you decided to drive. If you didn’t drive you would’ve had to leave an hour earlier to hop on a couple trains and if that was the case you’d certainly be a goner. The wife would’ve had you buried under the house in no time. Maybe you’re not so selfish after all, you tell yourself. But you are, because you are giddy the minute you hit the road enroute to a place where all your dreams will come true.
But your dream is actually hell…or a hangover? Oh god, shut up about your own book. You’re not even hungover. It’s been two days since Ross’s reading and you didn’t even drink that much. It’s hell because as you park the car you realize you’re in the midst of a few abandoned buildings in the middle of Brooklyn. You can pretend you’re cool all you want because you lived in Hoboken for a year but let’s be honest…you’re a soft suburb boy at heart. These dilapidated buildings give you the creeps. You wonder if The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research could really be located here of all places. But you check the address again and again and unfortunately…you’re in the right place.
You get to the door and there are a couple hipsters smoking clove leaf cigarettes. You ask them if this is the place for the reading and they confirm it is while judging the shit out of you. You are wearing a short sleeve button down, blue slacks, Chelsea boots, and a Yankee hat. You have more meat on your bones than the three of them combined. They are shocked that your big, dumb, jock looking ass is attending such an event. They don’t even check your ticket.
You walk up the stairs to Gasda’s studio, somehow miss the entrance, and end up on the top floor of the building where trippy music is playing and about ten people are laying on mattresses. It smells like incense. They are surely on some cocktail of psychedelics. This is your nightmare. If this is the reading you might as well hop back in your car, stop at a bar, pound a shot and a beer to clear your mind of what you just saw, and hightail it back to Jersey.
But you call Adam Pearson and he says, “Music? Mattresses? We’re out on the terrace right now. None of that shit going on here. I don’t know where you’re at,” in his southern drawl.
You walk back downstairs thanking God you didn’t use your capital with the wife for some weird Hare Krishna shit. Because let’s be honest here – if the reading was going to be on mattresses and if joining in on the ritual was going to help you and your novel you would have sat your ass down, took some of what they were having, and went along for the ride. You social climber. You ass kisser. You selfish son of a bitch.
When you arrive on the correct floor, you are relieved that there is a bar and a tender and people standing upright. A bar you can handle. You’ve been to one or two before.
You order a couple Miller Lites to Pearson’s disgust, yet you both enjoy them on the terrace bullshitting about this and that. You have no pretense when it comes to beers. Cold is your criteria. The setting helps. It’s a hot day and you can see tall buildings in the distance and you are in Brooklyn for a book reading. For half a second you forget about your book all together. You are just enjoying a beer with a friend.
You both walk back into the studio where the reading is going to take place and take seats in the middle of a conversation between Pistelli, Barkan, and Gasda about the 9/11 novel or lack thereof. They all agree that there hasn’t really been one except the one by Jay McInerny and how
ends her critically acclaimed My Year of Rest and Relaxation (if you haven’t read it by now and are upset at this spoiler, I don’t know what to tell you). You want to add to the conversation that Beware of Pity by Stefan Zwig ends in the same way, with the beginning of World War 1, but you are too star struck to insert yourself in the conversation. Also, you forgot the name of the book.You keep quiet, mainly because you are an idiot compared to these guys. You’ve been listening to Pistelli’s voice for a while now via his great Substack
. You’ve learned more about the great books through him than any other person on planet Earth. No teacher in high school or college ever made you want to read Goethe before. And his real life personality matches the guy you’ve had in your earbuds for the last year. His voice is soft and measured. He’s calm. He thinks before he speaks.So it surprises you when, in the middle of the conversation, he asks, “Why did I lug all these books here again, Gasda?”
There are six total people in the room and five of them, including me, already have Pistelli’s book (one is an ex-student of his) and he’s brought a ton of copies for sale. He didn’t want to, he admits, but Gasda assures him there will be more people. It’s funny to you, and noted by the group, that after all the talk about male readers and male writers that the six people in the room are all men. White men!
“Except you,” Pearson blurts out.
The room looks at you, confused. Hispanic? Dominican? Cuban? Yea right, white boy! You’ve gotten this all your life and you still get a perverse joy when this information is revealed. Maybe this is a good time to mention your book. The character in your book resembles you. Half white – half Hispanic. But you don’t say shit. You are failing your mission.
After you get up, go grab a couple more beers for yourself and Pearson, you realize that even more men are rolling in. Sure, there are a couple ladies, but the ratio is probably 3:1. So much for the long-lost literary man. Ray Carver is somewhere smiling down on the event. After you hand Pearson his beer he slides into conversation with Pistelli, someone that matches his highbrow-ness, and you head to the terrace for some air.
Out on the terrace you run into Gasda. He is on a flip phone, coordinating something, finger pressing his teeth, look of concern on his face. The man is clearly busy. With all the books, plays, and Substack writing he clearly has a full plate. When he hangs up you thank him for the event and ask him about the space, about coordinating events, about his book (that you’ve just bought). He answers all your questions with a hint of worry in his voice, like he is paying attention to you while trying to spin fifteen plates in his head. But when you start talking about sports he seems relieved. This was something you did not expect. On the surface Gasda is your typical Brooklenite. The de-facto leader of Dimes Square. If you were to judge a book by its cover you would assume that he hated sports. That he found them to be cheap entertainment. He is a playwright and a novelist and has no time for frivolous activities such as athletics. You would have been wrong. By the end of the conversation Gasda is recruiting you to play in his touch football league that runs every Sunday. You would love to, but driving from Jersey to Brooklyn every weekend to play football would surely end in divorce or a torn ACL. You still have not brought up your book.
You head back in for the reading and Pearson does your dirty work for you. He tells a couple people about your book and you finally have an excuse to talk about it. People seem interested but you can’t tell if it’s because you are standing right in front of them, half a foot taller, 60 pounds heavier, or if it’s genuine interest. You guess you’ll find out when the book is released but it’s good that the entire trip wasn’t a complete waste of time. You’ve done what you set out to do. Get your name out there. Talk yourself up. But as people fill up the room and the readings start you finally come to the realization that none of this is about you. Each reader pulls you in in their own way and you feel equally awed, self-conscious, and competitive all at once. During Gasda’s reading you did in fact lean over to Pearson and ask if yours was better than his. You don’t know what depths of hell this question gurgled up from, but you had to know.
Post readings you asked each author to sign your copy of their book. They each did with a smile. You will be stealing Pistelli’s way of signing books going forward. You feel lucky to have a signed copy of his beast Major Arcana. Gasda signs The Sleepers not to Alex, but to Anthony. You wonder if he thinks you are a certain Anthony who just recently panned his book. If he does think this, you wonder why he was nice to you at all. Then you wonder how you would react to someone panning your book and then you finally understand why Hemmingway bullied Max Eastman. You’re probably less concerned with your manhood than Hemmingway but it would still be hard to resist the urge to smack someone in the head after shitting on your book. But then again, you would be happy with any review at this point. And you remember how Gasda deals with good reviews and pans. He eats it up, feeds it into the machine, and for weeks on end everyone is talking about his book. This is the way. There is no such thing as bad publicity for us novelists.
Barkan’s signature and note in your copy of Glass Century is your most prized possession of the night. You would like to tell the world what he wrote, but you’ll keep it close to your chest. It’s too good to just reveal it on Substack. It will only live on in your copy. But you will reveal here that it has to do with the Mets and Yankees.
You give Pearson one last hug before leaving. That’s right, a big old man hug. He has the same look as the first night you said you were leaving – like you had just kicked his cat. You remind him that you got the wife and kids at home and…again…he is shocked. You wonder if he has confused your main character with you. Drinking and drugging all night is a young and single man’s game, something you are neither of anymore. You’re going to miss your talks with Pearson. You are brothers in this writing thing now.
On your drive home you were struck with mixed feelings. Wanting to be a great writer. Wanting to be better than other writers. Embarrassed that you actually want this. Conflicted with how you will feel about shamelessly marketing your own book in the future. You know books are a business, a tough one, but they’re also deeply personal. Each one of the readers that got up and read their book were putting their hearts on the table. Sure they want you to buy their book but they also want you to like it. They put just as many hours in that you have on your book. Possibly more. They care just as much about their work as you care about your own. They want to be better than the next guy too. You are happy you came to this conclusion because you were worried. You don’t want to be the selfish son of a bitch you thought you were. Or maybe you still are that selfish son of a bitch, but not only that. The book game is a mind fuck. But you’re happy to be in the game.
There’s no way you missed the first link but if you did - here it is again. Shameless plug for the win. This is my Substack after all. Hell or Hangover out now!!!!!!!!
