I only read two books this month. Usually, it’s three but I have a few unfinished things: half of Reality Hunger by David Shields (it’s funnier than I remember) and a bit of Alan Moore’s From Hell, which I am enjoying, but can only read intermittently as my children are comics-obsessed and I can't have it anywhere near them.
Not much in the way of writer news. There is a manuscript of mine out there in the ether, under consideration by the gatekeepers of industry. In these moments, writing reminds me of this thing Jim Greer said about playing bass in Guided By Voices:
‘Do it if you get the chance, but it’s not necessarily better than listening to Guided By Voices.’
With that in mind, on with the show…
I Shot The Devil by Ruth McIver
My way into this book is weird: Ruth McIver’s PhD supervisor is one of Australia’s best crime novelists (David Whish-Wilson) and he told me one of his students sold a book to Shane Salerno (the agent who turned Don Winslow’s career around). Then, months later, I ended up looking at the book (face out) in my local library and put two and two together. This is illustrative of just how hard it is to get a book into someone’s hands. In theory, any single beat in the story above should lead me to the book, but I obviously needed all of it in a row. And what’s worse: I loved it. If ever there is an ideal reader for I Shot The Devil, it’s me. Thus the ominous challenge of book promo.
I Shot The Devil is a psychological thriller about Erin Sloane, a journalist looking into a murder involving her former high school friends, all of whom were heavy metal burnouts. The book has a slightly gothic feel — think Sharp Objects, but with Slayer playing in the car stereo rather than Led Zep — and McIver explores a very unusual but very welcome set of vibes: the Satanic Panic, shady cops, the absolute chaos of youth. Highly recommended. Her writing is fantastic.
(For other writers, this is worth looking at for something rarely taught: you can run 90% of a pacy crime novel on open loops rather than action. This book has about a dozen major plot lines, which McIver balances well, and it gives the book a strange latitude. Many of the scenes are just people talking to each other or reading documents, but hot damn, it moves along, mainly because there’s always more complication and backstory, more interconnection and layering.)
Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin
I promised to tell you all my dirty reading secrets when I started this newsletter. So please, never come here expecting Plato’s Republic. This is the full monty.
I’ve been interested in the FIRE movement (Financially Independent, Retire Early) for years: its specific blend of thrift, antagonistic blogging, DIY craftwork and advanced spreadsheeting is something that speaks to me on an aesthetic level. I’m not a particularly devout adherent of FIRE, but I share the movement’s core spiritual tenets (compound interest and bicycling), and I naturally dislike all forms of shopping (alcohol excluded), so it’s a natural fit. To be clear, I’m not financially independent. In fact, I’m not even close. I’m going to die at my job, like everyone else. But if FIRE had a church, I’d be there every Easter and Christmas. I believe in the idea. There is a financial heaven.
Your Money Or Your Life is the bible of this lot (the founding text) and on this revised audiobook edition, I found sections of it deeply inspiring. Robin is — of course — completely right that I should watch my money more than I do, that I should learn to fix my own dishwasher, and that living in Melbourne is too expensive. In my heart, I know all this. Every $7 pastry I eat reinforces it.
But I’m also in my 40s so we’re talking years not decades in terms of early retirement. Thus it’s off to work I go, riding my commute into the Victorian winter with a batch lunch and canteen of coffee in my pack, trying to please God/Vicki Robin.
That’s all.
— IAIN
PS: Read my thoughts here and see how I live my life here.
PPS: This newsletter is brought to you by 23 by Blonde Redhead.