The God Pot is out

I wrote a novel. It's called The God Pot. You can buy it now.

I’ve been sitting on this book for a long time. Years. I always liked it but it just wasn’t ready.

A few months ago while on the island of Koh Tao, it was too rainy to go outside, so I stayed in my little bungalow and got some writing done instead. I revved up my 10+ year old Thinkpad T440p, opened up The God Pot and decided to forge ahead with a new idea.

That idea was enough for me to reach what I decided is the finish line for this book. Not because it’s perfect. But I think it’s important to let this beautiful mutant of a book be out there in exactly this form. If there’s any more work to be done, I’ll fix it in the next one.

The book is a somewhat disorienting read. Partially that is due to who I am as I writer and the things that I cannot help but be. Mainly though, the slight disorientation is intentional. The main character is delusional. The storytelling flows in vignettes rather than chapter breaks. The omniscient narrator has some insight into some of the characters, but it also clearly has its own perspective. I like a good unreliable narrator especially when it believes itself to be omniscient.

The God Pot is a book that gives me a lot of joy. My sense of humor comes out in a deadpan style and hopefully it’s also successful at bringing some emotional maturity to what is, let’s be honest, a fairly sophomoric Lebowski kind of tale. A trust fund heir who may or may not have been trained as a spy moves into a budget apartment complex in suburban Denver. Things happen. People are implausibly odd in a way that I find realistic. There’s a lot of sex and drugs. There’s a stainless steel pot that may or may not show the face of God.

Here’s the back cover copy:

Moony Adams knows seventeen ways to kill a man—or thinks he does. The trust fund heir can’t tell if his expensive childhood training was preparation for intelligence work or just the paranoid extravagance of wealth.

After his sister kills herself rather than join the family mining business, he exiles himself to a budget apartment complex in suburban Denver, trying to become nobody.

But privilege doesn’t wash off. Confronted by a woman with money laundering schemes, a landlord who might be an informant, and a neighbor who sees the divine in cookware, Moony discovers that his ambitions at espionage might be the most honest thing about him.

THE GOD POT is a wry novel about inheritance, delusion, and the American myth that you can be anyone as long as you commit to the bit.

Cast of Characters

Moony Adams — trust fund heir who may or may not have been trained as a spy

Celia — his 18 year old stoner model girlfriend

Perry Whitecomb — co-manager of Sod Hill, ex-cop, Moony’s landlord and unlikely friend

Deb Infield — Perry’s ex-wife, the other co-manager, sleeping with Celia and Moony

Heath Johannson — neighbor, meth cook, firefighter, sees God in a stainless steel pot

The Gypsy — Romanian theater owner with money laundering schemes and psychological tests

Kitty — the Gypsy’s sister, smells like cedar, refers to herself as “Hello Kitty”

Josh — satanist who works tech support

Jon-Jon — part-time clown, tells a giraffe joke

A Few Excerpts

Here’s Heath finding a friend:

Exiting Home Depot, Heath spotted Celia and said, “What would Jesus do?”

Deciding it was to throw stones at the car, he searched for a rock that spoke to him. Patiently listening for a half hour, the group was gone by the time he found one, so he put the rock in his pocket.

“I am your friend,” said the rock. Heath had never been happier.

Here’s Celia on the difference between ordinary and normal:

“What I think is great about life, a lot of people call ordinary… The problem with the world… is that [people] mix up ordinary with normal. Normal is the ugliest thing… We want to be ordinary. Art is ordinary. Ordinary is when you don’t need to stand out. Normal is when you’re afraid to.”

There’s a lot more in there. A snowstorm that traps everyone in a bar. A road trip to Mexico that goes sideways. A landlord who’s definitely reporting on someone. A disco museum enthusiast named Dotty. The stamp test.

When I was writing The God Pot, I was thinking of books like The Crying of Lot 49, Miss Lonelihearts, The Loved One, Winesburg Ohio, and the ending of Joyce’s The Dead. All the MKULTRA spy stuff and the Lebowski vibe just happened to show up.

I wrote this because it’s the sort of story I like to read. I hope you like it too.

Buy The God Pot on Amazon — available in print and ebook.

Also available wherever books are sold.