The Butchertown Chronicles: Draft 2, Slightly Nervous

THE LAST BULLET . . . .

Morning: The writer is preparing his upcoming novel for distribution and review to his select group of beta readers when nausea suddenly surges.

Who the hell wrote this crap? he grumbles, his mouth still crusted with sleep. Then he sighs: He knows the answer. Its whiskered visage stares back every morning from a spotted mirror.

A pent-up hiss whistles out his teeth. He moves on with his grim lonely work.

Butchertown, the writer’s novel, is far enough along that he’s decided to send it toddling around the block to see what the neighbors think. No matter the fear. No matter what they might do.

And believe it, he knows very well what they might do.

At night, the writer fears sleep, because there, underneath the black tarp, bad dreams lurk, portentous nightmares of dismal reviews:

“Former Local Hack Again Humiliates Hometown: School Council to Strike Burchfield’s Name from Records After Literary Effort Flunks Literacy Test”: Peekskill News Service

“If you’ve been waiting for a revival of the Roaring Twenties gangster novel, wait another ninety years. So bad, it’s the best advertisement for the re-institution of Prohibition I’ve ever read.”—Single Malt and Beer Monthly.

“It’s a shame bad books aren’t printed on paper anymore, otherwise I’d throw this latest crock by Burchfield right in the fireplace. Oh hell, guess I’ll take this hammer to my Kindle instead”—John Pilcrow, Pushcart Prize award winner (and real-life writer).

“Citing Burchfield Novel, Congress Unanimously Passes Censorship Law; Obama Promises to Sign. ‘We’ve Got to Do Something About This Flood of Bad Books!’ Says Speaker Boehner.”

The writer sincerely believes joking will help ease his anxiety.

That in itself is funny.

WHAT BUTCHERTOWN IS ABOUT

The writer now believes he can spill a little more about Butchertown, work up some anticipation among readers, both old and new.

The year is 1922, two years into the ruinous idealism known as Prohibition. The place: a highly fictionalized Northern California. The hero, Paul Bacon, a young up-and-coming junior assistant city attorney, glib fashion plate, and love-struck Lothario, ferries across the Bay one fogbound Friday evening, about to step out on the worst date of his life.

Through Butchertown’s frantic, bloody pages race dames sultry and devious, two motley gangs of trigger-happy mobsters, fatally obsessed Prohibitionists, two-fisted brawls, and hair-raising escapes down endless warrens of grimy alleys. The bullets fly, the bodies pile up. The air gets so hot, even water catches fire.

Somehow too, a love story flowers from the mud and grime, a good and offbeat one; or so the writer believes, the sap.

Butchertown fits in a number of genres: Roaring ‘20s shoot-’em-up, cat-n’-mouse thriller, fish-out-of-water story, noir mystery. Its roots lie in the crimson soil of Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest, sprinkled with the fizz and spectacle found in novels and stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald and other Jazz Age writers and journalists; and maybe a tinge of Eric Ambler for its coiled viperous intrigue and the innocent soul who blunders into and through its treacherous landscape.

Butchertown in no way mocks or brushes away the laws of physics, but it is a kind of horror tale. But, as the meat-ax title implies, it serves up a brimming bowl of horror. The writer is even considering warning labels, and fears he may be forced to cover the eyes of anyone he sees reading it, yes, even those of Stephen King.

It may be a good sign that the writer is scared by his own book.

A FEW FRACTIONS MORE . . . .

The second draft of Butchertown comes to a mere 263 pages, around 77,000 words. The writer hopes to trim a few fractions more.

How did it come up so short this time? Simple: Butchertown is told from a single, first-person POV over one extremely harrowing weekend, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. A single POV means tighter focus and less plot juggling.The reason why

Of course, shorter does not mean better, but as far as story and plot go, the writer experiences waves of pleasure with Butchertown.

Sometimes he actually says out loud (while alone), “The birth of my book is inherently more interesting and exciting than royal queenly people birthing babies or whatever it is they do over there.”

Yes, he is that self-obsessed—He doesn’t even care what they name the baby!

The writer bets that crime and suspense fans will especially like Butchertown because, out in the world, what the writer thinks matters little. Someone has to like his book besides him. Preferably lots of people. Lack of readership is no indicator of literary virtue either, crabby Bohos to the contrary.

As for bestsellerdom, like his pleasure-loving hero, the writer knows there are better odds at the race track. But he goes on writing anyway, for reasons that will remain mystifying as long as he lives.

As for more literary questions, there is the common quandary about to handle the plot. The setting seems vivid but the author is frankly undecided about how much of the real NorCal of the 1920s to use. As for literary matters of style—or non-bad writing--that’s for the final baking.

Whatever Butchertown’s current flaws, the writer thinks his book is good. That’s not a new thought. Now he needs some people to tell him whether or not it’s true and what he can do to make it even better.

And so he reaches out to those Lucky 7, those readers, both writers and not, to get their opinions and insights. You might well be one of them (yes, even you, vile Pilcrow!)

As a first-timer named Robert Galbraith recently found out, even great is not good enough. (The man got so desperate, the author hears, he’s started passing himself off as J.K. Rowling!)

The author strokes his mustache, then suddenly sits bolt upright, grabs his phone and dials:

“Steve . . . Steve King? Tom Burchfield here . . . say, I got this book comin’ out in a while and I’m wondering if you’d mind . . . you would? Great! I knew you’d be a pal!”

Copyright 2012 by Thomas Burchfield

Photo by Elizabeth Burchfield

Thomas Burchfield has just completed BUTCHERTOWN , a 1920s gangster shoot-'em-up. He can be “friended” on Facebook and tweeted at on Twitter. You can also join his e-mail list via tbdeluxe [at] sbcglobal [dot] net. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Elizabeth.