SOME THOUGHTS ON BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S MEMOIR...

Finally wrapped up listing to Bruce Springsteen's unabridged audio recording of his memoir. 

My Big Four takeaways:

1. Abiding admiration for recognizing, addressing and continuing to stand down a dark-side genetic load that rivals the one-handed Ernest Hemingway, yet probably in a similar, slippery way, feeds THE ART. Singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury, who was dealt a similar, stacked deck, called writing against such interior and potentially lethal darkness, "Feeding the Dragon."

2. Gratitude he didn't go into his politics too deeply, something I dreaded would mount as the (16, count 'em!) CD's entered the backstretch. I'm a sing-and-shut-up kind of audience, for better or worse.

3. It's still deplorable he didn't go to bat for the E Street Band being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with him: The tracks with his signature band are indisputably the ones that got him there, (ego?) convenient HOF rules/technicalities be damned.

4. Semi-related note: Dismay, and some disappointment, he stubbornly pays more lip service to lesser (and mostly solo) works, while in some ways undermining the music recorded with the aforementioned E Street Band that will best endure. (A generation from now, BORN TO RUN and DARKNESS will possibly still be resonating. HUMAN TOUCH? DEVILS & DUST? WRECKING BALL? Sorry...no. Those don't reach.) 

But some artists are their own worst critics, and more recent and expanded anniversary re-releases have confirmed Bruce buried better songs/versions at the expense of lesser tracks that made their way onto now classic albums.

(5?) Semi-tied to point #4: MAGIC is another, late-career album that most music fans likely won't discover years down the road, but it does contain one great track I choose to reference in THREE CHORDS & THE TRUTH (published by Betimes Books). In a series defined by time-jumps, I picked Bruce's "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" to name-check in order to anchor the most audacious (and possibly resonant) of all the time jumps in the Hector Lassiter series:

If you've read or listened to The Boss' memoir, your thoughts?

THREE CHORDS & THE TRUTH REVIEW

I'm criminally late linking here to this much-appreciated, quite knowing review of THREE CHORDS & THE TRUTH by James Ellroy (and crime fiction scholar) Steven Powell.

An excerpt:

"It’s not just the threat of a nuclear catastrophe that looms large over the novel, there is also a complete meta-fictional reworking of the Lassiter character and authorial persona which will make you question the nature of every page of the entire series. Take this description of crime writing in the novel:

The craft of fiction writing had earned the fifty-something Lassiter a good and steady living; nice threads, pretty women and a chance to roam widely: to see a bigger world than he would ever have glimpsed working some nine-to-five, wage-slave day job in his native Southern Texas.

"It is the 'bigger world' that every reader and writer in their heart aspires to, and the one that McDonald has given us through the Lassiter series, which is given a radical new perspective in the final pages of Three Chords."

The full review is available here, along with an in-depth interview we did together before the novel's release here.

MY INTERVIEW WITH STEVEN POWELL: CRUMLEY, BRUEN, SALLIS, 007 & MORE

My most recent interview with the masterful Steven Powell (expert in all things James Ellroy) is now available HERE. 

Ernest Hemingway, James Sallis, Ken Bruen, James Crumley are discussed, among a host of other topics, including some deep contemplation of Ian Fleming and James Bond.

There's also an exclusive cover reveal of the last Hector Lassiter novel coming later this year, THREE CHORDS & THE TRUTH.

In the meantime, here's a music video from Sara Evans that invokes that key and telling title phrase for the last Hector Lassiter novel, coming later this year from Betimes Books.

HECTOR LASSITER: A LOOK BACK & AHEAD

The New Year will see the completion of the Hector Lassiter series' publication, for the first time in its entirety, in chronological order and uniform packaging, by Betimes Books.

As the calendar year changes, here's a little look back, and ahead, for the Hector Lassiter novels.

The Lassiter series returned courtesy of Betimes Books in spring of 2014 with an aggressive launch sequence resulting in six novels. Four of the novels were never-before-published, and made the scene in trade paperback and eBook format.

Publishers Weekly said some very nice things about the series' return and, particularly, about the first new Hector Lassiter novel in three years, FOREVER'S JUST PRETEND.

The relaunched series particularly found traction in Australia, where, for several days, the entire series of then-five books dominated not just the top five spots in the paid Historical Mystery category, but also held the top five paid spots across the entirety of Amazon.com.au.

The Lassiter series also found its way into another scholarly tome: Ron McFarland examined Ernest Hemingway's use as a fictional character by other authors. Hector Lassiter gets quite a lengthy write-up. Mr. McFarland also deftly points out many of the Hemingway Easter Eggs and literary tricks and references found lurking just under the water level in TOROS & TORSOS, PRINT THE LEGEND and ONE TRUE SENTENCE.

The other big event of the past year was the Iowa City Book Festival, where I interviewed James Ellroy before a live audience, under the bright lights, very much a kick and a privilege. It was also a thrill to see the Lassiter series sharing shelf space in Iowa City with Mr. Ellroy's

novels.

So, it's 2015 now and new things await. This year will start with the re-release of two previously published Lassiter novels. The first is the book that launched the whole enterprise, the Edgar- and Anthony awards finalist HEAD GAMES, and also, PRINT THE LEGEND, which examines the FBI's clandestine war on writers and, particularly, its harassment of Ernest Hemingway.

After that, two final, never-before-seen Lassiter novels will appear. First up, will be a novel featuring Hector and James Bond creator Ian Fleming in 1962 Japan, and, a bit later, in Istanbul, witnessing the filming of the classic Bond novel, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Japanese author Yukio Mishima will also have a part to play in all that.

Closer to year's end, the final Lassiter novel in the original projected arc of the series will at last appear. THREE CHORDS & THE TRUTH (formerly known as GNASHVILLE, if anyone is keeping track), will reveal Hector's ulimate fate.

A collection of Lassiter short stories, WRITE FROM WRONG, will also appear before 2016 dawns.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a very short teaser for the next new Hector Lassiter novel.