r/books • u/Zebrarian_on_Avon AMA Author • Oct 25 '18
ama 2pm I'm Gregory Hill, award-winning novelist and autistic anosmiac. AMA!
I'm Gregory Hill, author of 'Zebra Skin Shirt' -- a mind-copulating piece of speculative fiction containing time anomalies, a quirky love story, and questionable basketball officiating.
This novel rounds out a trilogy set in eastern Colorado farm country, where I was raised (coincidentally). 'East of Denver' -- the first in the series -- won the Colorado Book Award.
I have been a musician in Denver for many years fronting such bands the Babysitters, the Super Phoenixes, and Manotaur.
I was recently diagnosed with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, or what I prefer to call Byrne's Disease, after Talking Head David Byrne.
Possibly as a result, social media makes my brain itch.
Also, I can't smell. But people tell me I do.
Ask Me Anything.
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u/Inkberrow Oct 25 '18
"Mind-copulating" cannot by definition be mental masturbation, so is it like a circle jerk, or something else altogether?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
It's more of a mind-fuck, but I was hoping to avoid profanity. So much for that.
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u/Inkberrow Oct 25 '18
I suppose now picking up your Zebra Skin Shirt constitutes consent. I want you. Sorry, it.
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Let's refine this: Zebra Skin Shirt is blind date that moves directly from the French Bistro into a moonlit walk on the beach, followed by a long discussion about absurdist existentialism, which leads to a breathless dip in the ocean, deep conversations about the meaning of life, and then, and only then, a comment along the lines of "Where your parents thieves? Because they stole the stars and put them in your eye sockets", which leads directly to sweet, tender love-making.
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u/Inkberrow Oct 25 '18
I feel like ZSS and I have a lot in common. And after it's over, I won't just put it on the shelf.
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u/tristendugbe Oct 25 '18
If it's speculative fiction, is 'Zebra Skin Shirt' a dark future dystopia?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Nope. It's a sunny, stuck-in-the-present lucricropia. The main character, Narwhal Slotterfield, exits a bathroom in a tiny High Plains diner and finds himself the only moving thing in the universe. Within this extra/sub-temporal state, everything appears to be perfectly still; birds are stuck in the sky; Narwhal exists in a pure present tense. As a corrupt, smart-ass basketball referee, he takes this as an opportunity to become a super-hero who renders his judgment on the world, or as much as it as he can cover on foot. But then he reads his girlfriend's diary and everything turns into a ludicrous shit show mystery.
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Oct 25 '18
Hello Gregory, I was also diagnosed with high functioning autism I’m currently in college working on a business degree but I prefer art and I want to be a writer as well. I want to write non-fictional inspirational stories. I had some serious trauma in the past and want to write about what happened and how I overcame it so I can help others. Is this a wise thing to do? What is it like to have a book published and get attention for it? Should I be anonymous? I have so many ideas but I don’t know where to start.
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
SYS, I'm barely an expert when it comes to myself and so I'd caution you against taking any advice I offer. But I'm gonna offer advice anyhow. I've found that writing is a great way to work shit out. Mind you, I don't ever deliberately set out to address any of my myriad hang-ups in my work, but as I write about fictional humans, it helps me consider real-life social behavior, which is handy. Even with the limited exposure of my books, I can say that the attention is difficult sometimes. An incomplete version of yourself ends up floating out in the world, subject to compliments and criticism. It might be a good idea in your case to remain anonymous, just so you can (hopefully) write with a little less anxiety.
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u/GenevaDowns Oct 25 '18
I really loved your first book "East of Denver." Will we find out anything about those characters in "Zebra Skin Shirt"?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Thanks, GD. Funny you should ask. ZSS takes place over the course of ten minutes on the same day that East of Denver ends. As you recall, East of Denver has an up-in-the-air conclusion; the wounded main characters are trying to do a loop-de-loop in a Cessna airplane, and down below, the Keaton bank in the midst of a robbery. Both of these subjects are revisited in ZSS. (My second book, The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles, which takes place before East of Denver, includes cameos of some EoD characters in their younger years.)
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u/boxtrox Oct 25 '18
I've enjoyed the whole Strattford County Triology and encourage folks to read them all. My favorite of the 3 is The Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles, the 2nd book in the trilogy.
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Johnny Riles has a special place in my withered heart. The ending is lovely and brutal and, best of all, an invitation to write me hate-mail. Nevertheless, I'm partial to Zebra Skin Shirt. Narwhal was a much easier character to write than laconic ol' Johnny Riles.
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u/bubblegumnex Oct 26 '18
What is your work flow for writing like? I have a hell of a time tackling writing projects :/
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u/boxtrox Oct 25 '18
Does having Byrne's Disease have anything to do with your books?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Being a Byrnist (or, as Preoccupine calls it, a Spectrumite) has everything to do with everything I do. Being diagnosed later in life (and after I'd written my first two novels), it's been revelatory to look at my earlier work and see just how my narrators' minds work. They're socially awkward, they tend to think they have everything figured out, and they make inexplicable decisions, and so on.
One of the groovy things about my brain (and, as I understand it, the brains of most high functioning autists) is the way it gravitates toward special interests. Once I get an idea, it must be followed thru to the end. Without that superpower, I'd spend most of my time chasing butterflies. Instead, I write novels.
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u/boxtrox Oct 25 '18
I'm a butterfly chaser myself. It's not so bad. What do you think David Byrne would say about you naming your Ausberger's after him?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
"This is not my beautiful nomenclature."
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u/boxtrox Oct 25 '18
Does being a Spectrumite have anything to do with being an anosmiac? You write a lot about smells in The Lonesome Trial of Johnny Riles. Was that you fantasizing about what it would be like to smell?
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u/boxtrox Oct 25 '18
Does being a Spectrumite have anything to do with being an anosmiac? Also, you write a lot about smells in The Lonesome Trial of Johnny Riles. Was that you fantasizing about the world of smell?
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u/tristendugbe Oct 25 '18
In Zebra Skin Shirt, the main character is a referee that intentionally makes wrong calls in order to sway the game the way he wants. What's his motivation? Is he some sort of control freak?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Narwhal Slotterfield, the referee in question, is the subconscious of his games. He's the Dreamweaver. He's the Walrus. He's the mete-man of justice. He's what happens when we give power to someone who'd rather help the underdog than be honest. And he gets away with it because his games are always supremely entertaining (the dude calls fouls on cheerleaders and nobody bats an eye). Once he's set loose in a time-frozen world, he applies his subterfugation talents to the universe at large.
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Oct 25 '18
Do we have any news on your latest work, about the country musicians?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Ah, the epic tale of the Stables Family Band. I'm about 1/3 of the way thru the first of what I expect will be three novels that'll follow multiple generations of a family that emigrates from France to the US by stowing away on the ship that brought the Statue of Liberty to NYC. At this juncture, they've just started receiving lyrical ideas from the ghost of Auguste Comte, who is trapped in the belly of a giant narwhal.
That's a great question to end on...Thanks for stopping by, gang. It's been a pleasure.
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u/chickenbuttwhat Oct 25 '18
If you can't smell in real life, can your fictional characters smell? How does that even work?
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u/Zebrarian_on_Avon Oct 25 '18
Good question, chickenbuttwhat. And I'm delighted that we're addressing the chronically overlooked issue of not-being-able-to-smell. My fictional characters are fictional; they can do whatever the Faulkner I ask them to do. Otherwise, for instance, someone born without feet would never be able to write about such subjects as manicures and plantar warts.
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u/Preoccupine Oct 25 '18
Hello there, fellow Autistic here (or what I prefer to call Spectrumite).
I'm a writer. The words come out as I get lost in a trance, as the story writes itself. About 30,000 words into my very first novel!
Interesting to hear what you call "time anomalies", as my story contains those as well.
So my question is more general and abstract (as how our minds work)
Do you think "mental disorders" are truly "dis-orders" at their very root, or perhaps minds that refuse to follow a given "order"?
Also, do you think historic Greats (such as Leonardo Da Vinci) could have been wrought with "dis-orders" but because they were never agitated, they weren't suspect of having any disorder at all?