Let It Be (an introduction to an unpublished novel)

A few years back when I was invited to contribute a story to Jay Stringer’s crime fiction collection, WAITING TO BE FORGOTTEN: Stories of Crime and Heartbreak Inspired by the Replacements, it reawakened my desire to write and got those creative juices flowing again.

I’ve always a fan of the reality show Top Chef and am fascinated by what the contestant chefs did when they were asked to deconstruct a basic food staple. They would deconstruct a taco, bacon and eggs, a hot dog. So I started thinking: how can I deconstruct a favorite record album with fiction? And thus LET IT BE was born, a novel inspired by the classic Replacements record of the same name.

The story of a female documentary filmmaker in New Haven struggling to keep her artistic and human integrity, LET IT BE is to me both hilarious and dark in equal measure. It’s a novel about love, loss, dogs, sex, secrets, tattoos, experimentations, rock and roll, and the way our families fuck us up, all through the eyes of a female protagonist trying to figure life out. Each chapter is inspired by a song from the album; sometimes with more literal interpretations of lyrics, sometimes simply seeking to replicate the feeling of listening to a particular song.

One of those chapters was the very first piece of fiction read (by yours truly) at the opening ceremony of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library in Indianapolis. It was an honor to be there, and hopefully that speaks well of the writing.

But…please remember…this is an unedited, unpublished novel. Think of it as a demo, the way you would a song. You’ll probably find some typos, and inconsistencies. My typewriter might have been a little out of tune on one chapter or another. But you’ll get the bigger picture.

One other thing, though I’m presenting this book, one chapter at a time, in the same sequential order as the album which inspired it, I believe the chapters can be read in any order, on shuffle play if you will.

So dig in and enjoy. There will be a new chapter for you to hopefully enjoy every other week.