Thursday, July 26, 2012

Magic Harmonica Wolf

Be sure to come to Off Square Books today at 5 PM Central Time to witness the triumphant return of John Brandon! His new nonfiction self-help book A MILLION HEAVENS is out. So many heavens to choose from. Come early and find out which heaven is right for you! I tricked you, it is not a self-help book. It is a novel! An awesome novel with a magic harmonica and a talking wolf, you know, one of those. Ha ha! There aren't any other ones of those. And my description is inaccurate. The wolf thinks about stuff. Like Garfield! Ha ha. The wolf is nothing like Garfield, although he does hate Mondays. Ha ha! The wolf doesn't hate Mondays, as far as I know. And "magic" isn't the correct adjective to describe the harmonica. But is there an angel in this book? I kind of think so! So now you will be confused, perhaps, when I truthfully claim that it is a work of realism. Have my clumsy attempts at categorizing tantalized you? I hope so! Because I can also see how I might have driven you away. Look, John Brandon has a whole novel to work with! I'm trying to cram the beautiful, mysterious, musical and gritty world he has created into a dumb "blog" "post." IT'S NOT FAIR! Plus my motives are sullied. I only mentioned the harmonica - out of all the memorable images in the novel - because there is a "harmonica" label in the "label section" of the "blog" and I hardly ever get to use it. "Magic Harmonica Wolf" was my first idea for a title for this "post." It seemed too easy, and I briefly changed it to "Magic Wolf Harmonica." I considered "Harmonica Wolf" and "Wolf Harmonica" as well, no "Magic." But when all is said and done, "Magic Harmonica Wolf" lands with just the right amount of "oomph." I am a huge John Brandon fan and you better believe he has written another amazing book, but as you know, the government requires me to mention that I received my copy of A MILLION HEAVENS free from the publisher McSweeney's, for whom I do some occasional writing. What does the government take me for? Some kind of cheap shill? I wish!