Mr. Neutron

This week’s other featured book, “Natalie’s Wars,” by Paul Castellani, can be found by scrolling down below this post, along with the First Tuesday Replay. Or, click the author’s name on our Author’s page.

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THE BOOK: Mr. Neutron

PUBLISHED IN: 2018

THE AUTHOR: Joe Ponepinto

THE EDITOR: Leland Cheuk

THE PUBLISHER: 7.13 Books

SUMMARY: Shy, struggling political consultant Gray Davenport is failing at his profession, his marriage, and life in general. He dreams of making it big in politics, but no one will give him a chance to prove himself. Then a strange candidate, Reason Wilder, runs for mayor in the depressed city of Grand River. He’s nearly eight feet tall and moves in spasms. Could he possibly be a creature stitched together from the body parts of dead politicians? Only Gray sees through the giant’s aura, and he realizes he must expose the monster before he and his evil creator seize power.

THE BACK STORY: Okay, there’s a little autobio in here, since I worked for a decade behind the scenes in local politics and got to meet the kind of crazy people who campaign for office. When I left that business and began writing seriously I naturally wanted to write about that experience. The first few drafts of the book were very traditional in terms of characters and plot. But as I continued to revise I began to exaggerate the characters until they became the whackos you see in the published version, including the “undead” Reason (which is not as far from reality as you might think).

WHY THIS TITLE: Mr. Neutron was the title of a skit on the old British comedy series, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” The piece concerned a being from another planet (Mr. Neutron), who was supposedly the most powerful man in the universe, but who never actually used his powers, and instead spent time visiting his neighbors and gardening. How like so many of us, who dream of greatness, but spend our lives just getting along. And the description defined my protagonist, Gray Davenport, perfectly, so I decided to borrow it.

WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: Jacob M. Appel called Mr. Neutron “A hilarious and biting romp across the American political landscape… satire at its best.” Who am I to argue? I’d add that the book has proven remarkably prescient—I originally had the idea for a mindless political candidate who enthralls the masses back in 2010…and look how things have turned out since.

REVIEW COMMENTS:

“Joe Ponepinto’s Mr. Neutron offers a hilarious and biting romp across the American political landscape. Mr. Neutron is satire at its best: sharp, clever and unsettling. Ponepinto has penned the defining political comedy for our own tragicomic democracy.” –– Jacob M. Appel, author of Millard Salter’s Last Day

“Inventive, trenchant, and laugh-out-loud funny, Mr. Neutron is reminiscent of The Broom of the System and A Confederacy of Dunces, yet Ponepinto’s voice is wholly original. With its unforgettable characters and its whip-smart political satire, this novel is the catharsis we need for the America we live in today.” – Kelly Davio, author of It’s Just Nerves

“Mr. Neutron is pure fun, satire at its best, skewering American government, politics, and society with delicious humor and insight. This is a book you’ll press on your friends, a book full of quotable gems and characters you won’t soon forget.” –  Kathy Anderson, author of Bull and Other Stories

“Just when you thought politics couldn’t get any stranger, Joe Ponepinto gives us this—a madcap, comedic tale of politics as usual—or unusual, rather. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll read, you’ll vote. And then you’ll read again.” – B.J. Hollars, author of Flock Together

“No novel has made me laugh this much since Richard Russo’s Straight Man. Ponepinto has injected just enough of the irreal into his satire to match America’s current fever-dream politics.” – Bruce Holland Rogers, author of Forty-nine: A Square of Stories, and two-time Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner

“A terrifically inventive romp through the insanities of small town politics delivered in high-octane prose that manages to be both mordantly funny and deeply poignant at the same time. Pitch-perfect and written with a fantastical (in every sense of the word) nod to the golem myth, Frankenstein, and Jerzi Kosinki’s Being There, Mr. Neutron is profoundly relevant to our time. Smart, crackling with insight on every page, it is also compulsively readable. I could not put it down.” –- Joan Leegant, author of Wherever You Go and An Hour In Paradise.

AUTHOR PROFILE: Joe Ponepinto publishes and edits the literary journal Orca, and was the founding publisher and fiction editor of Tahoma Literary Review, a nationally recognized literary journal. He’s published stories in more than forty literary journals. He has an MFA in creative writing, and teaches at Seattle’s legendary Hugo House writing center.

AUTHOR COMMENTS: I would not say that this is a book that had to be written. More like it just kind of happened and once I got started I couldn’t stop myself. As facetious as that sounds, writing it that way allowed me to ignore certain literary conventions and trends, and write in an uninhibited, almost free-flowing style that focused on humor nearly as much as plot. Whenever I came up with an unusual idea or character, instead of telling myself, “you can’t do that in a novel,” I said, “why not?” Here’s the result. I hope readers appreciate the approach.

By the way, my very sincere thanks to Darrell Laurant and Snowflakes in a Blizzard for posting about my book. There aren’t too many people in publishing who make this kind of effort to help promote other writers and their work. It’s a privilege to be included on the site and I am grateful for the opportunity.

SAMPLE CHAPTER:

https://joeponepinto.com/mr-neutron-sample-chapter/ and my homemade trailer is here: https://joeponepinto.com/mr-neutron-trailer/

LOCAL OUTLETS: Kings Books, Tacoma WA; Elliot Bay Books, Seattle WA

WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: Amazon

PRICE: $9.99 for paperback on Amazon; $2.99 for Kindle CONTACT THE AUTHOR: https://joeponepinto.com/ or https://orcalit.com/