Virtual Book Tour Dates:2/17/14
- 3/17/14
Genres:
Speculative/Dystopian/Literary
Blurb:
Set against the backdrop of a city
under quarantine, Gospel for the Damned is an episodic and
introspective novel that follows young journalist Aaron Garrett on
his three day assignment within sequestered San Francisco. His
assignment: Interview The Elliots, family of the missing minister
suspected of releasing the deadly Omega virus.
What he finds is a fractured community
and a myriad of ways of facing hopelessness: clinging to normalcy in
banal routines; thrill seeking in dangerous truth-or-dare games;
mercy killing and federally sanctioned euthanasia; embracing sorrow
through macabre celebrations; and searching for God where faith has
been abandoned.
Together with The Elliot Family, Aaron
embarks on a mission to save someone, anyone, from a doomed
existence.
This is Gordon Gravley’s first
literary work, and its philosophical leanings may very well provoke
questions of your own about the world we live in, and the future we
face.
Excerpt:
It was an opportunity that would make
my career or crumble it, and I’d like to say it came to me by way
of my diligence and journalistic talent. But truthfully, I was given
the assignment for the simple reason that I was the only one on staff
at the Sound who tested as resistant to the Omega virus; it
was my luck to be in the 2 percent of the nation immune to a disease
that, to date, had wiped out a third of the West Coast’s
population.
Buy Links:
About Gordon Gravley:
After
decades of self-doubt and errant life choices, Gordon Gravley
finally came to write this, his first novel, and is now
diligently working on his next two. He and his wife currently
reside in the Northwestern United States.
Connect
with the Author:
Guest Post:
My First Book
I finished
writing Gospel for the Damned,
my first book - about
a journalist who spends three days within the quarantined city of San Francisco
- a little over three years ago. I had developed it from a short story I
wrote in 1994, almost thirty years before.
The short
story, A Little Reality Never
Killed Anyone, is about a group of teens in some kind of dystopian world
who play dangerous truth-or-dare games to conquer their fear of living
day-to-day. It's not very good. I'm not just saying this to be humble or
self-deprecating, it's really not good. (One magazine that rejected my
submission wrote - and I'm paraphrasing, only slightly - "We're not
interested in your story. We only publish good writing.") But, it was one
of the first and few short stories I ever wrote, and I will always cherish it
as one of the many, necessary steps I took in becoming a novelist.
So, why
thirty years to write my first novel?
Several
reasons:
First, I
didn't know what the hell I was doing. A story of a few pages length is one
thing. A book of 200-plus pages, with real character development, detailed
settings, and a cohesive story arc is a whole other realm of organization and
creativity. I must have written a dozen or more outlines, trying to figure out
how to connect all the different elements that were swirling around in my
imagination.
Also, I had
a number of strong characters with very distinct experiences. So I wrote three
or four first drafts, each from the perspective of the various characters
(written in first person). Yet, none of the early drafts worked because I
couldn't coherently tell the story of all the characters from the point-of-view
of only one of them. I also tried approaching it as a collection of stories
connected by a common thread, like Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight
in Heaven, or Hemingway's Nick Adams stories. But that merely complicated
what had already become a daunting task.
How about
writing from the omniscient or detached viewpoint? I thought to myself. I wrote one such draft that
just didn't sound right; the story called for a more intimate narration than
that.
In 2004, I
took a course in the writing of research papers. (I had a vague plan of getting
a degree in the field of linguistics.) I wrote two pretty good papers, if I do
say so myself, both of which had an unintended journalistic voice to them. And
there was the answer to my dilemma: write my novel from the point-of-view of a
journalist, from the outside, looking in. It was quite astounding how everything
fell into place with that realization.
The second
reason (or excuse, depending on how you look at such things) was the single
greatest challenge that I think every writer faces - Life. It can sure get in
the way. Working to pay the bills and a difficult first marriage, to name two
things. But, and this would be my first piece of advice to any aspiring author,
it's amazing how much you can produce with only one hour a day dedicated to
writing and only writing. That's all. An hour a day.
Lastly, the
greatest deterrent to the completion of my first book was, simply, fear of
failure. I'd spent (or wasted, depending on how you look at such
things) so much of my life chasing rainbows (like a linguistics degree)
that when it came to doing the one thing I felt I had a certain amount of skill
in and true passion for - writing - I became incapacitated with the fear of it
not working out, of failing, and then where would I be?
Well, it did
work out, because I realized the only way I would fail is if I didn't try.
Gordon
Gravley
Giveaway:
One lucky winner
will win a signed print copy of Gospel for the Damned. The giveaway
will run the length of the tour, USA only please!
