Swing State (19 page)

Acknowledgments

I
STARTED THIS ONE ON
S
EPTEMBER
9, 2010 in Amherst, MA, right after I began my commute to Lowell, MA five days a week, ninety minutes each way.

The title
Swing State
—better than “Armbrister,” a pre-Middle-brooks baseball interference in-joke—came to me in the shower sometime in 2012 at our new apartment in Belchertown, MA. I finished the sixth and more or less final draft at the big house in Orono, ME August 1, 2013, after two months of doubles book-ending the Monsters of Talk tour.

Thank you to my amazing wife Rebecca Griffin for all her love and patience.

Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges continue to believe in me, despite the fact that I'm a Red Sox fan.

Much respect to all the bookstores, galleries, living rooms, and basements that hosted readings on my Hidden Wheel tour: Rachel and Benn at Atomic Books; Aaron and Book Thug Nation; Black Wine; Pete Camerato and Pillowman; Chop Suey Books; Chris Dooley, Meghan Minior, and all at Flywheel; Valerie Leavy and Satellite 66; Megan London and all at Main Street Music Studios; Midtown Scholar; Megan and Dexter
Murphy; Papercut Zine Library; Gina Quaranto and Blackbird Studios; Liz and all at Quimby's; The Regulator Bookstore; Liberty and RiverRun Bookstore; Laurie Steelink and Track 16 (RIP); Liz at Stories; Txotuo and Sub-Mission Gallery; Eric Truchan and Rehab House; Maggie and all at Wonder Root; and Dani and Emily of Word Portland.

Beta readers: James Brophy, Jen Grosso, and Ed McNamara, Broderick Lang, Katie Lattari, Ben Stein.

Thanks to friends and family, pets included. Dr. Damian Adshead, Momi and Ramsay Antonio-Barnes, Tyler Babbie and Kate Kenderish, Billy Babbitt, Austin Bagley, the staff of the Belchertown Post Office, Tim Berrigan, Black Wine, Whitney Erin Boesel, Casey Boyd and Becky Cyr, Julie Burrell, Tobias Carroll and Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Coastwest Unrest, Marc “Gus” Desgroseilliers, Todd Dills and the 2nd Hand, Mike Faloon, Shelly Fank and Tim O'Neill, Ray and Kathy Fournier, Duane Gorey, Jay Grant, Great Western Plain, Ned Greene and Eliza Burke-Greene, Dave Griffin, Russ Griffin, Broseph Grillo and Hilary Preston, Emma Howes, Duncan Wilder Johnson, Kickstarter Muster Roll, Dave Kress, Kathy and Jerry Lacroix, Rich and Jackie Ladew-Tang, Dave Lawton, Miriam Leibowitz, Karen Lillis, Heather and Andy Malenke, Sam McPheeters, Paige and Lily Mitchell, Dan Moellering and Courtney Davis, Lisa Panepinto and Ryan Roderick, Rachel Perry and Rob Bergen, The Pichettes, Sammy Ponzar, Mike Powers, Brendan Emmett Quigley and Liz Donovan, Amber Porter and Ramsay Tatawi, Adra Raine, Steve Reynolds, Maggie Sabo, Kevin Shine and the ShineTones, Spippy, Taiwan Typhoon, Lori Timm, Tooth and Germ, Wah-Tut-Ca Scout Reservation, Tommy Walsh and Marna Eckels, Mike Watt, and you.

Molly T. Bunny—aka Cabildo—1997–2013.

Rest in Peace: Jon Cook and Jason Noble.

I'd love to read in your town/at your bookstore/in your living room/at your school, etc. Get in touch:
[email protected]
, and/or PO Box 784, Belchertown, MA 01007.

Now go start your own ___________ !

For more information, visit
http://michaeltfournier.tumblr.com

About the Author

M
ICHAEL
T. F
OURNIER IS A WRITER
/
CRITIC
/
MUSICIAN
, and the author of two novels:
Hidden Wheel
(Three Rooms Press, 2011) and
Swing State
(Three Rooms Press, 2014), as well as
Double Nickels on the Dime
(33 1/3 Series/Bloomsbury Academic), a book-length discussion of the 1984 Minutemen album of the same name. He is founder and co-editor of
Cabildo Quarterly
, a broadsheet literary journal. His writing has appeared in the the
Oxford American, Vice, Pitchfork
, and the
Boston Globe
. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife Rebecca and their cat.

Recent and Forthcoming Books from Three Rooms Press

PHOTOGRAPHY-MEMOIR

Mike Watt

On & Off Bass

FICTION

Ron Dakron

Hello Devilfish!

Michael T. Fournier

Hidden Wheel

Swing State

Janet Hamill

Tales from the Eternal Café (Introduction by Patti Smith)

Eamon Loingsigh

Light of the Diddicoy

Richard Vetere

The Writers Afterlife

DADA

Maintenant: Journal of Contemporary Dada Art & Literature (Annual poetry/art journal, since 2008)

MEMOIR & BIOGRAPHY

Nassrine Azimi and Michel Wasserman

Last Boat to Yokohama: The Life and Legacy of Beate Sirota Gordon

Richard Katrovas

Raising Girls in Bohemia: Meditations of an American Father; A Memoir in Essays

Stephen Spotte

My Watery Self: An Aquatic Memoir

SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY

Have a NYC:

New York Short Stories

Annual Short Fiction Anthology

PLAYS

Madeline Artenberg & Karen Hildebrand

The Old In-and-Out

Peter Carlaftes

Triumph For Rent (3 Plays)

Teatrophy (3 More Plays)

MIXED MEDIA

John S. Paul

Sign Language: A Painters Notebook

TRANSLATIONS

Thomas Bernhard

On Earth and in Hell
(poems by the author in German with English translations by Peter Waugh)

Patrizia Gattaceca

Isula d'Anima / Soul Island
(poems by the author in Corsican with English translations)

César Vallejo | Gerard Malanga

Malanga Chasing Vallejo
(selected poems of César Vallejo with English translations and additional notes by Gerard Malanga)

George Wallace

EOS: Abductor of Men
(poems by the author in English with Greek translations)

HUMOR

Peter Carlaftes

A Year on Facebook

POETRY COLLECTIONS

Hala Alyan

Atrium

Peter Carlaftes

DrunkYard Dog

I Fold with the Hand I Was Dealt

Thomas Fucaloro

It Starts from the Belly and Blooms Inheriting Craziness is Like a Soft Halo of Light

Kat Georges

Our Lady of the Hunger

Robert Gibbons

Close to the Tree

Israel Horovitz

Heaven and Other Poems

David Lawton

Sharp Blue Stream

Jane LeCroy

Signature Play

Philip Meersman

This is Belgian Chocolate

Jane Ormerod

Recreational Vehicles on Fire

Welcome to the Museum of Cattle

Lisa Panepinto

On This Borrowed Bike

George Wallace

Poppin' Johnny

Three Rooms Press | New York, NY | Current Catalog: www.threeroomspress.com Three Rooms Press books are distributed by PGW/Perseus: www.pgw.com