DINGO, the novel

Recently, a buddy e-mailed me his first novel. This, of course, is a dreadful thing, because one can't just start reading it, stop, drift away. No matter how awful, you have to finish the damn story so you can speak knowledgeably about whatever --

Hey. It's good.

No, not good. Finished-it-in-a-day-great.

It's currently out to agents, but that may well be a futile thing. Michael Alan Nelson's Dingo starts like a sex/drugs/rock&roll road trip story, swings through violent-revenge Lee Childs territory on its way to ... a steady realization, artfully built, that his character's world is a little more "off" than we first thought. (To say any more is to ruin the delight of the choices) Suit humans would only be frightened by Nelson's relentless refusal to be pigeonholed. A smart publisher won't be.

Inspired by writers who've done the like (and because he is, I think, an old-fahioned "tell it anyway anyhow" storyteller) Mike's posting a chapter-a-week in blog format. You can start reading Dingo here. Hang out for a few weeks, you will dig it.