It’s true. I have a new book coming, next year, in the fall, so announcing this now feels silly but I’m going to announce it, if I haven’t already. It’s possible I did. If so, I’m sorry.
The book is called The Reeds. It will come out in the fall of 2024. It was supposed to come out in the spring but now it’s coming out in the fall because the sales and marketing people felt it would be better received in the fall and who am I to argue? (hint: I’m not)
The book grew out of my Twisters. Remember those? When I was writing them until 2018 (I wrote about why I stopped writing them here) and then moved on with my life. They were standalone, each one, but sometimes, a “character” kept reappearing, a kind of office tyrant, and I used him as an easy way to critique office life/corporate culture and what work can do to the soul.
I wondered about this man’s family life. And I imagined that he was a good man, a good husband, a good father. He lived a dual existence. And from there, truly a humble beginning, I started writing about a family and then the family itself took over and I ended up with the book. If you search my profile on Medium and then search for “Jones” you will find a bunch of early drafts and chapters. You will note the project was called “Jones” and not The Reads, and that’s because I changed the title; another Montreal-based writer came out with a book called…Jones last year. About a family. That’s where the similarities end but it was enough for my publisher to note it and ask “What do we do about this?” and the Jones family became The Reeds.
Fall 2024. It’s a long time from now. The book will be fresh. Like all authors, the story will not feel fresh to me (the first excerpt of any Jones kind of stuff on Medium is from 2015 (!)) and I’ve already imagined absolutely blanking out on plot points during an interview, which I will then spin into something about the process of publishing, we’ll have a good laugh and then we’ll go out for a beer. Because beer can make everything better.
Cheers!
