I am a novelist who is currently seeking a home for two works:
A RHAPSODY OF GHOSTS is a novel about the spectre of Death, the loss of innocence, and the rediscovery of love. When his troubled mother is killed in a car accident a young man looks back at all the apparitions of Death that have appeared over the course of his life: the mysterious but distant deaths of grandparents, the loss of a father, the dark shadow that has hovered over modern America from Kent State to 9/11, and his mother's frightening battle with alcoholism and bulimia. The result is a fragmentary, raw, free-flowing journey into the emotional and intellectual maze that comes with mourning. There is anger and love and bitterness and joy; nature and politics; lyricism and honesty.
Though not autobiographical in the traditional sense, the genesis of RHAPSODY was the 2003 car-crash death of my mom, and the thoughts and feelings that arose from it. The thoughts and feelings are real, the characters and events not-quite-so.
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DIZZLEMUCK is a satire that wonders what would happen if a band of naughty Scottish wee folk invaded modern small town America. Imagine Our Town if rewritten by Tom Robbins after watching an all-night marathon of Gremlins, and that is the feel I was going for with this sometimes dark, sometimes broad, often bawdy ecological comedy.
I came up with the idea for DIZZLEMUCK in Scotland, where me and my wife were married. I was pleasantly suprised to find that the image of Scottish wee folk being introduced into small town America fit well with certain political and ecological themes I wanted to explore, and I think the novel is an interesting commentary on modern American life.
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I am heavily influenced by both literature and music (the structure of A RHAPSODY OF GHOSTS mirrors that of a record album, with ten chapters, or "songs," of varying independent themes and moods), and among these influences are Edward Abbey, Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Thomas Pynchon, Italo Calvino, Hunter Thompson, Harper Lee, Allen Ginsberg, J.S. Bach, John Cage, Glenn Kotche, On Fillmore, Tom Waits, and Neko Case. Other major influences include decrepit old barns, skulls and bones, and anything I can find living or rotting in woods and fields.
I am also an avid (if not very lucky) herper, and a quasi-musician (guitar, piano, percussion, household items). I live, for now, on the north rim of Wisconsin's only volcano, with my patient and understanding wife, a large dog, two cats, and a couple reptiles of the snake pursuasion.
Check the "Blog" section for fiction samples and other odds and ends, or visit toddmichaelcox.com
Oh yeah, check out my spoken-word project, Ripe for Shaking, found below.
Or visit http://toddmichaelcox.blogspot.com/ for other tidbits, letters, essays, etc.
