My latest novel Chapter One is due to be published by the end of 2022. Life is like a hall of mirrors, reflecting repeating patterns back at us, similar decisions, similar mistakes.
Authors characteristically mirror their life through their writing. But what if the hall of mirrors has so many reflections that the boundary between reality and fiction is blurred to the point we can no longer tell on which side of the mirror we are standing? That is the premise of Chapter One, my fifth novel.
This offbeat, self-conscious, genre-breaking meta-fiction keeps you, the reader, on your toes.
Henry is a frustrated author writing his first novel about a frustrated writer named Jake. Jake’s partner, Carol, is a shrewd and stunningly beautiful heroine who keeps him guessing at every turn. But who are Jake and Carol? Our perception of them changes every time Henry starts his story over at Chapter One. Our evolution in understanding Jake and Carol, and ultimately Henry and the people in his life, is only one of the many reflections in the hall of mirrors that is this story. Henry’s plot finally settles into a love triangle, murder-suicide between Carol, her husband and Jake. Or does it? Henry leaves his readers guessing all the way to the last page, which is also the last page of Chapter One. The mind-binding reflections of reading a story about an author writing a similar story reverberates throughout the novel which bounces back and forth between Henry’s life and the life of the characters about which he is compelled to write.