I have long wanted to create a “brand” for my four books to unify them. Make them look like they belong together. My books are not a series, but they share enough similarities that they do indeed belong together. But the covers do not demonstrate that.
Here are the front covers as they exist now — in the order published.
They do not look like they belong together, though the first and the fourth are close, and my intention was to redesign the other two to match.
When I Killed My Father was easy, though I have not uploaded the new cover to the two sites where I publish my books — Amazon/KDP and IngramSpark. (One of the benefits of self-publishing is that authors can upload new covers and corrected manuscripts at any time for no cost. It can be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.)
Wasted has not been easy. Over the last number of years, I designed more than ten different versions of the cover and was not happy with any of them. Now I’ve got three that I think are better. I welcome your feedback.
When I designed the Wasted cover in 2015, I was pleased with it. I’d been a graphic designer for decades, but I did not realize until later that there are “rules” about book covers that I did know, one of the most important of which is that the cover telegraphs to the reader its genre. Here’s what designer Joel Friedlander, former president of Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA), said about the Wasted cover:
Obviously the designer is skillful, but the big fail is that the book looks like nonfiction or a corporate publication, and has no trace of what must be the excitement and drama in the story.
Guilty as charged
I’ve been messing with all sorts of cover ideas for a while, and when I sought feedback on them a two years ago, more people liked the one I considered ugly than any of the others. But I didn’t like it.
This is the ugly one.
I recently created another version of the cover that I like better. Then I took the existing cover, the one that looks like a nonfiction primer on recycling and adapted it to fit the brand. Rules are made to be broken, right?
Below are these two new versions. What do you think?
So here are new front covers that all share the same branding.
And then I had another idea, to make the branding more explicit by including the tagline: “Page-turner with a Conscience.” I have used that line many times in marketing the book, during book talks, in this author letter, on my website, and on sites where I sell my book. So I took another pass at each of my novels and added that to the top.
What do you think? I value your feedback. I’m too close to my books to be as objective as I need to be. Please share your feedback in the comment area below or contact me via email at johnbyrnebarry@gmail.com.
One way or the other, I am committed to branding my books.
Now that I look at them at the small size most people will see them, the “page-turner with a conscience” is barely visible, so I probably need to scrap that idea or make it bigger.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
P.S. You may wonder whether devoting all this time to redesigning my book covers might not have been better spent writing my current novel. The answer is surely yes, but designing taps into a different part of the brain than writing and it’s “fun.” That’s my excuse anyway.
I would love to hear from you, even if you don’t have an opinion on the covers.
For most of the past year, I’ve been hawking my fourth and most recent novel, Pirates of Sausalito.
But this month, I’m pitching my first novel, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher.Set during the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico, Bones is one part political thriller, one part family soap, and one part murder mystery.
If you’re interested in politics and presidential campaigns, but feel overwhelmed by the news of the day, you might enjoy a fictional escape. Bones is full of dirty tricks, sleazy voter suppression, and the like, but it feels downright innocent from today’s vantage point.
(Speaking of innocent, I admit that in 2008 I believed that if the voter suppression tactics were exposed as what they were — attempts to limit voting by people who were more likely to vote for Democrats — that they would be discredited. How naive I was.)
Freedom! Now I have choice back for how I spend my free time, after 5 days of being enmeshed in this compelling story. Congratulations to my friend, J.B. Barry on this wonderful novel! I was actually a bit surprised, since it’s been a while since I wanted to read fiction, and even longer since I picked up a political thriller. And then, drawn in from the very beginning, I found myself “addicted,” reading after breakfast, on my commute, again after lunch and more before I turned the lights off to sleep over the last few days. —Roy Schachter
I was going to cut this one because it’s long, but once I reread it, I thought, no, I want you to read the whole review. 🙂
This is one of those unusual novels where you end up talking about the characters as if you knew them well—which itself makes for a wonderful read.
The setting is the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico, complicated by the romance, rage, and lives of two fabulously dysfunctional families.
From one family is the charming young Hispanic mayor of Albuquerque, Tomas Zamara, chair of the New Mexico Republicans for John McCain. From the other comes the astute, attractive, a tad plump but sexy Sierra Léon, an activist in a liberal nonprofit, who has been tabbed by her organization to run its campaign for Barack Obama in her native New Mexico.
Drawing on his own role in political campaigns, Barry deftly evokes a realistic sense of the heady thrills of a campaign, one that is sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks.
Sierra’s group bites back, once with a hilarious mock demonstration by “Billionaire Lobbyists for McCain,” complete with signs for NAARP, the National Association for the Advancement of Rich People, and other sarcastic taunts.
As the subtitle says, “Politics Is Tough. Family Is Tougher.” Zamara gets tangled in an affair with an attractive and brilliantly horny woman, Tory Singer, while he’s trying to rearrange some skeletons locked in the family closet. His autocratic father and his now-dead wife (it’s her bones in the wash) had cut shady deals with drug dealers and money launderers, which demands some deft maneuvers from Tomas.
As for Sierra, she has to cope with her depressive mother, her narcissistic dad, her cad of a boyfriend, and a reporter who’s desperate to get into her panties.
Zamara turns out to be the most interesting character, though some will not find him believable, because he’s a Republican who actually has integrity! —Bob Schildgen
★★★★★Five Stars I didn’t want to have to put the book down when I had to. —CACW
Last month, I participated in apanel discussion on “Finding Your Voice” for the California Writers Club Marin Branch. I’m writing my fourth novel, another “page-turner with a conscience,” and I know that I have an author voice that is me, the writer, and it’s distinct from my characters’ voices. But it wasn’t until I was asked to take part in this panel that I deconstructed that author voice, and identified how it differs from my characters’ voices. (Spoiler alert: sometimes it doesn’t, when it should.)
(Here’s a video of my presentation if you prefer to watch instead of read. Only nine minutes.)
I’ve been in a wonderful writers’ group for five-plus years now, and one of the most useful, and common, critiques I’ve received, in regards to my dialogue, is: “That doesn’t sound like your character, that sounds like you.”
(I hate it when people are right like that.)
To deconstruct my author voice, I looked through my three novels, and compiled dozens of excerpts, but because I had a time limit, could only include a few in my talk.
Robert Rose lay on his back, his hands crossing his chest. Peaceful. Deep in sleep. Lamar used to be able to sleep like that — “You could probably nod off on a fire engine with sirens blaring,” Janis once said, not hiding her resentment. He couldn’t sleep like that now.
(This is a conversation between Lamar and his daughter, Sierra, who has just returned home to Albuquerque to work on a political campaign just as her parents are separating.)
“Tell me what’s new,” he said.
“You mean, other than the fact that my parents are splitting up and I’m coming home to land in the middle of it?”
As they neared downtown, the windows of the Plaza Tower and the Hyatt reflected the afternoon sun. “You’re upset and you’re not sure how you’re going to manage,” he said.
“There you go, doing that therapy thing on me.”
“No, that’s called listening, a highly underrated part of conversation. It’s where you say something, and I pay attention. You may want to try it sometime.”
“Dad, I am a good listener. That’s why I can hear you manipulating me.”
So when I looked at these and many more excerpts, I asked myself “what characterizes my author voice?” and I came up with these adjectives and attributes.
Smart
Sharp
Snappy
Witty
Staccato
Tight
Irreverent
Dramatic, sometimes melodramatic
Over-the-top
Metaphorical
Visual
One-word sentences and sentence fragments
It was a valuable exercise for me, and I encourage other writers to try it. We all have a voice, but often, we are not conscious of it. Think of it like accents. Many of us don’t think of ourselves as having accents, but we do.
How to Distinguish Between Author Voice and Character Voice(s)
There’s a difference between author voice and character voice, but they can blur together. Many successful writers sometimes have many of their characters sound alike — one example is Aaron Sorkin, writer of the West Wing.
But ideally, they don’t. If you see a line of dialogue, or an internal monologue, it’s bestg if you can tell who is speaking without identification.
Think of the difference in how Barack Obama and Donald Trump speak. Obama is thoughtful and deliberate, sometimes painfully so, like he is formulating his entire sentence in his head before he says it. Trump is impulsive and improvisational. He has riffs he repeats, but you get the sense that he just opens his mouth and blurts, almost without thinking. He speaks in short guttural phrases, doesn’t finish his sentences.
What I aim to do with my characters is identify speech patterns like that.
Here’s a simple one. I’ve got a character in the novel I’m writing now named Mickey Macgillicuddy, who talks like this.
“Hey man, like I went to college. Well, Grateful Dead University. Hey, how can you tell when Deadheads have been staying at your pad? They’re still there, man.”
In this case, I run the risk of sounding like a cliche, but it may be worth it for the joke.
Here are a few ways to make your characters’ voices distinct.
Ask rhetorical questions or answer questions with questions. Are you accusing me of…? What do you mean by…?
Speak in long, grammatically correct complete sentences.
Speak in fragments, interrupting yourselves. Don’t finish sentences.
Use contractions, or do not use contractions.
Use words like “brilliant” or “groovy” or “awesome.”
Use verbal tics —
“you know”
“look”
“what I mean is”
“at the end of the day”
“actually”
Interrupt others. Finish their sentences.
Try to be funny, sarcastic, or self-deprecating.
Use big words, or never use big words.
Use certain sentence construction, like more-this-than-that. “Other friends didn’t disappear so much as recede.”
Tell stories or jokes. (In my presentation, I started with a joke, which comes from When I Killed My Father, where my protagonist Lamar, a therapist, tells stories and jokes and that’s as part of who he is. It’s part of his voice.
One critical way to make characters’ voices unique is what they notice, what they are concerned about, who they care about, and so on. Their inner thoughts and feelings. Their goals. Their regrets. Their yearnings. By showing their character, you also show their voice. You don’t want all your characters to sound alike, but if their journeys and their conflicts and what’s meaningful to them are unique, their voice will reflect that. Let’s look at Lamar’s voice. (This is him talking to his daughter, in the same scene as the excerpt above, about listening.)
“OK. My Story, by Lamar Rose. Chapter 1. I still care for your mother. I do. I take marriage seriously. I take my responsibility as a husband seriously. I believe in keeping my promises. But love is a verb, not something static. It’s how you act. In our case, it’s become acting—on my part. Your mother doesn’t even bother with the acting.
“There’s a difference between the unconditional love I have for you and what I feel for your mother, which is conditional love. I’m going to love you no matter what. I want you to love me too, but if you don’t, well, I’m never going to stop loving you or being your father. It’s not a choice I have to make.
“But I can’t make a marriage work by myself and I’m no longer willing to give up my own life because I made a promise. I can’t live a healthy life married to your mother. I can’t heal her—I’m not sure she wants to be healed—I can only heal myself. So I am. I apologize for not consulting you, not giving you a warning. This has nothing to do with you.”
“But why did you move?” she asked. “You love the house, the garden. Mom doesn’t care about any of that.”
“I brought that up, said we should figure out who lives where, to which she said something like, ‘after all you’ve done to me, I’ll be damned if you kick me out of my house too.’ Those were the exact words—they’re seared in my mind.”
Sierra flinched.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should have kept that to myself.”
“What did you do to her?”
That’s when I ended my presentation. My nine minutes were up. You can learn more about my author voice and character voice in my books.
In June, I hiked and hung out with my brother-in-law at his family’s off-the-grid cabin at Echo Lake, and one evening, impatient with the library book I was reading on my tablet, I scrolled through what other books I had downloaded and there was my first novel, which I finished writing nine years ago — Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher.
I started reading it and could not stop.
It was a thrilling experience, to enjoy my own book, enjoy it immensely, as if I were a reader, and not the writer.
I like to say that I write the kinds of books I enjoy reading, so I have to acknowledge that I am the target audience of my book. Which means there are plenty of readers for whom it may not sing. But that’s true of all books.
(Reminds me of what I wrote long ago in an online dating profile — ”I’m not for everyone, but if you’re looking for someone like me, I’m perfect.”)
I remembered a lot of Bones in the Wash, but there were many complications and details and snippets of dialog that I did not remember, and I found myself rooting for both of the main characters, who were working against each other.
For the billions of you who have not read it, here’s a brief synopsis: Bones in the Wash is one-half political thriller, one-half family soap, and one-half murder mystery — that’s right, a book and a half. It’s a “page-turner with a conscience” set during the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico. Ambitious Albuquerque Mayor Tomas Zamara is charged with doing “whatever it takes” to deliver the state’s five electoral votes for John McCain, which includes shutting down voter registration drives and accusing the Democrats of stealing the election, charges he knows are not true. Challenging him every step of the way is fierce, young Sierra León of the Democracy Project, who calls on him to listen to his better self and reject his party’s dirty tricks. Both protagonists, knee-deep in politics, face as many or more crises with their families and relationships.
What I was especially pleased with as I read the book was the way it weaved together Tomas’ and Sierra’s stories. How their plots collided. For example, in one chapter, we see Tomas shut down a voter registration drive in Bernalillo, creating a new obstacle for Sierra, even though, at that point in the story, he doesn’t even know who she is.
The context in which I was reading Bones is important — I’m rewriting my fourth novel, a mystery/comedy tentatively titled Showdown in Sausalito: The Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery True Story, which sounds like a Borat movie and maybe that’s the point. I am happy with the first ten chapters or so and with the overall story, but I’m struggling through the muddy middle. I’m on Chapter 21 and I wish I could just tighten and polish my first draft, but instead I have to rethink it.
There were two threads going on in my head as I raced through Bones. One was that it was damn entertaining. It was tight and well-written. So many chapters ended with a cliffhanger that made me want to keep reading, even when it was time to sleep or eat. I cared about the characters as they faced one obstacle after another and I wanted to find out how they overcame them. Or didn’t.
The second thread was that the book I’m writing now is not as strong. Aren’t we supposed to get better with experience?
But then I reminded myself that Bones had, at many points during the writing and editing process, been flabby and unfocused, and I kept making it better and most important of all, cutting what wasn’t necessary.
Another interesting, albeit depressing part of reading the book was seeing how, in 2008, the Republicans used allegations of “voter fraud” to shut down voter registration drives and challenge legitimate voters. In light of Trump’s big lie about the 2022 election being stolen and the January 6 attack on the Capitol, what happened in Bones in the Wash was on a small scale and seemed comparatively innocent. But the seeds were there.
I remember talking with one reader, from Canada, who said he loved the book, but that the voter suppression tactics and dirty tricks didn’t seem realistic. I assured him that, though they were fictionalized, all the tactics and tricks in the novel were based on real and recent events, though not necessarily in New Mexico. If he read the book today, he would not consider it unrealistic.
While writing Bones in the Wash, I had this delusion that as allegations of voter fraud were exposed as frauds themselves, as empty excuses to push new voter suppression measures, that this false narrative would die away. Instead it has grown. Even when politicians say the silent part out loud.
I underestimated the power of the big lie. (But I’m not going down that rabbit hole now.)
One more thing I was impressed by was how all the main characters, and even many minor ones, had their own journeys. They were not static one-dimensional stock characters serving only as foils. While writing, I often remind myself of Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Tom Stoppard play about two minor characters in Hamlet, who are, in this play, the protagonists in their own life stories, as they should be. And as are the secondary characters in Bones in the Wash.
If all goes according to plan, early next year I will finish Showdown in Sausalito and then, five or ten years from now, I’ll pick it up and reread it and be as impressed and entertained as I was with Bones in the Wash. Hopefully, other readers will enjoy it as much as I do.
My first novel, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher, is set during the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico. It’s one part political thriller, one part family soap, and one part murder mystery.
Ambitious Albuquerque Mayor Tomas Zamara, charged with delivering the state’s five electoral votes for John McCain, is directed to shut down voter registration drives and accuse the Democrats of stealing the election. He’s also grappling with a volatile new woman and a demanding family. Then, when a flash flood unearths the skeleton of his long-missing wife, investigators zero in on Zamara as a suspect.
Challenging him every step of the way is fierce, young Sierra León of the Democracy Project, who calls on him to listen to his better self and reject his party’s dirty tricks.
Bones in the Wash, awarded Best Book 2015 by the Bay Area Independent Book Publishers Association (BAIPA), is free as an ebook until Election Day.
One of the recurring storylines in Bones is voter suppression and dirty tricks. I remember one reader, from Canada, who told me how much he enjoyed the book, but he thought that the many tactics in the book that made it harder for people to vote seemed unrealistic. I told him that all were based on documented incidents, though not necessarily in New Mexico.
But from the vantage point of now, those voter suppression actions in 2008 seem so innocent, almost quaint.
Early on in the story, my protagonist, Tomas Zamara, a Republican, expresses his discomfort focusing on making it harder to vote. Well, that’s obviously fiction.
(For an overview of how Republicans are engaging in voter suppression and disenfranchisement in the 2020 election, see “Conservative Judicial Decisions Keep Boosting GOP Voter Suppression,” by Ari Berman in Mother Jones and “A Judicial ‘Shitshow’ Blocks Absentee Ballots in Wisconsin,” by John Nichols in The Nation. The most galling example Berman references is in Florida, where 64 percent of voters approved a ballot measure two years ago to restore voting rights to former felons, but the legislature subsequently passed a law requiring them to pay all fines before they can vote. This could result in the disenfranchising of 775,000 Florida citizens.)
Here are a couple of my favorite reviews of Bones in the Wash:
✭✭✭✭✭ A political page turner
Bones in the Wash is a fast-moving whodunnit built around the 2008 presidential campaign as it played out in New Mexico. The story alternates between two attractive and sympathetic characters who are on opposite sides of the campaign. It includes political dirty tricks, international drug gangs, a disappeared spouse who may have been murdered, cranky dysfunctional families, and lots of beautiful New Mexico countryside. I was up till 4 am finishing this one. The surprises continue right to the last page. I highly recommend it.
✭✭✭✭✭ Highly recommended
It is remarkable how the author so completely understands the characters he develops for this story: the dynamics of Zamara family; the competitive relationship between two young women friends; the distinctly different romances between young Sierra and her boyfriend, between Mayor Zamara and the mysterious Tory, or the strained marriage of Sierra’s parents. You feel as if you’re peering into the private lives of real people, all skillfully set against the backdrop of the highly competitive world of Presidential politics, with the sinister world of organized crime casting a faint but menacing shadow. It takes a fertile imagination to dream up a flash flood that threatens the lives of the mayor and his lover on an outing in one part of the state, while uncovering the bones of his murdered wife in another. I found myself eagerly turning the page to discover how the various plot lines in this book were going to turn out. Highly recommended.
(Here’s a distilled version of the author talk I gave at the Great Valley BookFest in Manteca on October 8. Thanks to Toni Raymus for inviting me.)
I’m skeptical about branding. Sure, everyone knows that 15 minutes can save you 15 percent on lizard skin. But I’ve sat through enough branding meetings over the years to decide a brand wasn’t relevant for me as an author.
Until I came up with one.
This past summer, I was asked for a title for my talk here at the Great Valley BookFest. Four words or less. I came up with “page-turners with a conscience.”
After my author talk at the Great Valley BookFest in Manteca.
I wasn’t thinking brand then, just title, but it is a brand, my brand — a distilled marketing message that defines who I am and what I write.
I didn’t have this brand in mind when I wrote my two novels, but it was there in the back of mind. I hadn’t found the words. Arguably a brand is more important for marketing than writing, but having this brand is already helping me write my third novel. (A family drama about euthanasia.)
I know I want the story to race like a rollercoaster, but give the reader something to think about.
I’ve been a reader all my life. I can’t imagine life without reading. My father was an English professor and my brother is as well, so I’ve read my share of literature.
But I’m a lazy reader. If something doesn’t grab me, I stop reading. I’m not in school anymore. I don’t have a test to ace or a paper to write. So I read a lot of mysteries and suspense. I love reading a book I can’t put down.
Take The Firm, by John Grisham, who’s laughing all the way to the bank. Twenty-plus years ago, I stayed up till 3 am at camp reading it by headlamp. It tore to the finish. But it was ridiculous. The protagonist took on the mob and the FBI with one hand behind his back. To make the plot sprint, Grisham sacrificed character development and believability. And there was nothing to think about once the book ended.
What I want to read and write are books that move like The Firm, but with three-dimensional characters, believability, and some sort of moral dilemma or nuanced choice that gives the reader something to think about.
Now to the conscience part. What ties my books together — I have digitally combined them in Albuquerque to Berkeley: Two Election-Season Thrillers, for only 99 cents — is the daunting challenge of doing the right thing. Not just in politics, but in family, love, and murder.
In my first novel, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher, set during the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico, ambitious Albuquerque Mayor Tomas Zamara is charged with doing “whatever it takes” to deliver the state’s five electoral votes for John McCain. He has a strong sense of right and wrong — one of my friends said, I know you’re writing fiction, because your protagonist is a Republican with integrity. But Mayor Zamara understands that politics is like playing football on a muddy field. If you don’t get dirty, you’re not giving your all.
In Wasted, Brian Hunter, a wannabe investigative journalist covers the “recycling wars” in Berkeley, finds the body of his friend Doug crushed in a bale of aluminum, and sets off to find the murderer, all the while chasing Doug’s ex Barb, now a suspect in his murder. Brian is convinced that the big bad corporation, Consolidated Scavenger, is responsible for the murder, and blinds himself to the possibility that it could be Barb.
At the center of Wasted is an idealistic, but dysfunctional collective called Recycle Berkeley, or Re-Be. What I aimed to do, and succeeded, according to many of my readers, is portray this collective as the good guys, well-intentioned, but flawed in huge ways. And the bad guys, Consolidated Scavenger, aren’t all bad. They have a record of taking over companies and using their lobbying muscle to influence regulation, but they’re also more efficient than Re-Be, and less corrupt than many of the companies they’ve absorbed. And though Brian would like to peg them for this murder, he can’t unearth any evidence they killed Doug.
In short, I’m attracted to things that aren’t black and white. To the fifty shades of gray in between. (I might have grabbed that as a brand, but it was taken.).
That’s why I like this “page-turners with a conscience” brand — my books are entertainment more than literature, but they’re not just galloping plots. The characters face tough moral choices.
My goal is to aim for that sweet spot between best-selling mindless entertainment reading and literary masterpiece.
Though my writing style and subject matter are totally different, I’ve been very influenced by the British spy writer John Le Carre — I’ve read about 20 of his books. His early Cold War books, the good guys, the Brits or Americans, are often very compromised. In their zeal to defeat the Soviets, they become just as bad as they are. Of course, the life of a spy is characterized by deception.
One of the first books of LeCarre that was not about the Cold War was Little Drummer Girl, which starred an Israeli secret agent who went undercover as a Palestinian, and as he becomes more embedded in Palestinian society, he understood their situation more and it became harder for him to see things in black and white.
I’m going to read a scene from Bones in the Wash, featuring Mayor Zamara’s antagonist, Sierra León, a precocious hometown girl who’s made good a political operative, and has returned to Albuquerque from Washington D.C., to run a statewide coalition supporting Obama.
As editor of her high school newspaper, she covered Zamara when he was a city council member, and later, for the University of New Mexico Daily Lobo, his campaign for mayor. He doesn’t know her, but recognizes her face and her name. She pressures him to live up to his reputation of integrity, but he doesn’t, and the dirty tricks he engages in work. This drives Sierra crazy, and this scene is her talking with her father about this over dinner at an outdoor cafe.
“The thing is,” said Sierra, “I feel like such a chump playing by the rules. It’s not just being punked. It’s them shutting down voter drives, running sleazy racist ads. Cliff says we should play dirty, and I don’t want to, but I’m starting to think he’s right. Integrity is just a selfish indulgence.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I don’t know what to believe. I mean, I’m a model citizen. I don’t litter. I bring in milk for coffee and other people use it without ever buying any themselves. I play by the rules and it doesn’t make any difference. The goopers are cheating left and right, but all the news is about us cheating. Their lies carry more weight than our truth.
“You know, you look at the news and what people talk about and you get the impression that the nitty-gritty of politics is the people running, their characters, their positions on the issues, and of course, that’s partly true. But underneath that is this whole business of setting rules, like who can vote and when, and the Republicans are evil genius and meta on that front. I hate it that I actually admire what they did even as I despise it. If they can manipulate the rules so it’s harder for the poor and young and old and disabled to vote, then they have an advantage no matter how weak their candidate is.
“They just ran this sleazy, racist ad too, well, a third-party group did that, but I’m sure the McCain campaign knew about it. We’re a third-party group and we take seriously this rule that we’re not supposed to coordinate with the Obama campaign, but right-wing groups ignore this rule blatantly, and never get called on it, except by us, but then they just say, oh, it’s partisan attacks. That’s what’s so infuriating—”
“Slow down, mija.”
“If only there were some impartial referee, like at debate club, some thoughtful observer who says, well, you got more votes, but you broke the rules, so we’re going to subtract points. The right does whatever it wants, rules be damned. I’m just so tempted to get down in the gutter and give them a taste of their own medicine. I can feel the blood lust.”
“What would that mean?”
“Well, we’ve been doing some oppo research. Opposition research. Not so much McCain as his local surrogates, like the mayor, who has a reputation for being a clean, straight-and-narrow kind of guy, but that’s just an act. He has skeletons in his closet too—and I don’t just mean the bones of his wife in the wash. I covered her disappearance when I was at the Daily Lobo, and before that, his campaign for mayor. In between, there was some scandal that didn’t get much play.”
Her father wasn’t nodding his head, but he was listening intently. He licked his lips, rubbed his cheek with his hand.
“We could make a big deal about that,” she said, “sully his reputation. I mean, this is not how I like to operate, with personal attacks and all that, but after what he’s done, he deserves it. This insistence on being honorable gets in the way. When the stakes are high, it’s a liability—”
Lamar didn’t wait for her to stop. “So you want to fight the bad guys by acting like them?”
“I don’t want that. I want to win. That’s why I’m going zombie over this.”
“Can I tell you a story?”
She nodded. She knew she didn’t have a choice.
“You eat.” Lamar had cleaned his plate and drunk his beer. Now it was getting cool. He buttoned up his long-sleeve shirt, wiped his mouth again with the threadbare turquoise napkin.
“Once upon a time there was a farmer who was gearing up for spring planting when his horse ran away. When he told his neighbor that afternoon, the neighbor said, ‘That’s terrible news. Disastrous. How are you going to get your beans planted?’
“The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Bad news, good news, who knows?’”
Sierra, with her mouth full, waved her fork. “You told me this before,” she said, “but go ahead, please.”
“I’ve also told you before to slow down and not talk with food in your mouth,” he said, signaling the waiter for another beer. She made a face at him. “The next day, the horse returned with a wild white stallion, strong and spirited, and the farmer reported this to his neighbor, who said, ‘That’s great news. You’ve got another horse to help with the plowing.’ The farmer says, ‘Good news, bad news, who knows?’
“The next day, the farmer’s son started training the stallion to pull the plow, and the horse threw him off and he landed hard and broke both legs. When the farmer told his neighbor, he said, ‘What bad news. You were counting on your son for the planting. How can you possibly get the ground ready for your beans without him?’
“Of course, you know where this is going. The farmer says, ‘Bad news, good news, who knows?’ And then the next day, the king’s men come to conscript able-bodied young men into the army to fight the Mongols or whoever. The farmer’s son can’t even walk so they don’t take him. Predictably, his neighbor is ecstatic. ‘This is great news.’
“Whereupon the farmer says, ‘Good news, bad news, who knows.’ And so on.”
Sierra held up her fork to take the floor, but finished chewing first. “So what you’re saying is if we lose the election, I shouldn’t jump off a bridge because some day in the distant future, I might get a pony. I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation.”
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