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A Writer in His Natural Habitat
A novel excerpt
Last month, I shared the first chapter of my second novel, Writer in Residence, to celebrate its 10th anniversary. As an intro to the chapter, I mentioned that while I know that just like parents aren’t supposed to have favorites among their children, authors aren’t supposed to have favorites among their books, yet I do love this one the most. Clearly, one of the book gods was not happy about this; it became my least viewed and least read piece of fiction in nearly four years (and don’t even ask about the earnings).
Maybe it wasn’t the book gods, though. Maybe the title of the chapter, “The Church of the Last Word,” gave people the impression that it was some religious screed and rightly scared them off. Or maybe I simply made the mistake that everyone else did by publishing anything in January. Freaking January, thank God it’s over.
In any case, I refuse to let the anniversary pass in such a depressing manner, so I’m giving the “celebration” one more try by sharing another chapter, this time one with a title far less likely to make readers give it a wide berth: “A Writer in His Natural Habitat.”
Coffee shops are the same the world over, Max thinks as he gazes around the interior of the unimaginatively named Benny’s Beans. Whether in Brooklyn or Berlin, Fresno or Fort Worth, the smell of…
