Days After the Crash [Kindle Edition]

Joshua Fields Millburn (Author)

Book Description

There is wreckage in the rearview. Jody Grafton’s world is crumbling around him.

To get away from it all, Jody moves from his native Ohio to Brooklyn to sort through the rubble of his self-indulgent twenties. His marriage is over. His new girlfriend is pregnant. And his career as a pseudo-famous singer-songwriter has fallen apart: gone is his record deal, his money, his fame—even his desire to create new music. While he stares at the ruins of his musical career, his mother becomes ill, and Jody starts drinking heavily to deaden his new reality. After months of struggle, he attempts to put the pieces of his life back together the only way he knows how: through music.

DAYS AFTER THE CRASH is a succinct, five-chapter novella about a troubled man struggling to reconcile the demons of his past. To fade the scars of the last decade, Jody must face his self-inflicted wounds head-on if he plans to discover a brighter future on the horizon. But does he have the strength to piece his life back together?

Editorial Reviews

Review

As the title suggests, we find Days After the Crash's dysthymic protagonist, a listless 29-year-old Jody Grafton, in the throes of a quarter-life bottom as he recollects the wreckage of his "self-indulgent" twenties.

Grafton's arms are covered with tattoos, "garish" reminders of the tumultuous years before; he even has a placeholder on his right forearm: "FUTURE REGRETS." The weather, which is a projection of the ambivalence and myopia, rings analogous to the lives of young people facing the second decade in the second millennium. 

Millburn's prose--at times muscular and unflinching; at times, lifting and purely-poetic--takes us deeply into the shadows and fires in the protagonist's mind: his losses, guilt, shame, hopelessness, dread, and inklings of hope. And the story, which has the wit and urgency of a Bright Eyes song--along with the moments of high, hard-wrought beauty--moves erratically through time but is held taut by a series of acoustic-rock lyrics (It's been too long / for me to go back / To try to change / the demons of my past).

The story is a retrospective narrative of an almost-famous musician, his deeply moving relationship with his dying mother, and his hard-wrought return to the living: to "choose life," as it were, though it seems there are no fair fields on the horizon (indeed, only the Midwestern cornfields punctuated by one treacherous scarecrow).

There is something anthemic about the Grafton narrative--many of us can sing with him. No longer seduced by happiness, we, like Grafton, find ourselves hoping for something to hope for, even through the clutter of culture, and freedom from the bondage to our own aberrant devices.

--The Panamerican

From the Author

FOREWORD

I hate forewords, so I'll keep this brief.

Nobody reads fiction anymore. The novel is dead. No one has time to read made-up stories these days. We've been told these lies for years. And to a certain extent these lies are true. While genre fiction--vampire, teen, paranormal, and the like--may have given birth to a new kind of readership, not nearly as many people read serious, literary fiction in today's busy, entertainment-saturated world. 

This is unfortunate, but I'd like to posit to you that this "problem" is more the author's fault than the reader's. With television and movies and video games and internet and iPods and iPhones and iPads and iWhatever, people have more options than ever. This is good news for people, but bad news for writers. 

It's bad news because authors are no longer competing solely with other authors. Instead, we are competing with an entire world of designers and directors and developers of new, hip, slick products. And all of us creators are vying for the same thing: your time and attention.

For me, however, this is actually good news. It is a test of sorts. Competing for your time means that my burden of proof as a writer has been radically increased, and thus I must work incredibly hard to create something that is both enticing and entertaining, while still providing a payoff that cannot be found anywhere else. 

I believe that fiction can provide this payoff unlike any other art form. When it's done well, literary fiction is the only creation that can provide an exchange of consciousness between its author and its reader, conveying raw emotion and internal feeling far better than Hollywood movies or trendy apps or even narrative nonfiction. It is this exchange that brought me to literature in the first place, and it is this exchange that still makes reading and writing fiction the most thrilling thing in the world for me.  

Because I am vying for your time, I made this book succinct (somewhere around 9,000 words, which in traditional print is less than 40 pages). My test herein was to create a book for two types of people: something demanding enough for people who love serious literature and also something accessible to people who are curious enough to dedicate a sitting or two to reading my prose. Hence, this book is short, but it's also reasonably difficult; it can be read in a few sittings, though you'll also be challenged by its more rigorous aspects like, for example, the 714-word sentence that ends the first chapter--a sentence I spent a month crafting.

I labeled Days After the Crash a novella because it follows the traditional arc of a novel, albeit appreciably shorter. It's worth noting that this book was partially tweezed from my forthcoming novel, As a Decade Fades, which features the same main character, Jody Grafton, and which is significantly longer and more complex and much, much more fractured and fragmented, not unlike a large piece a glass dropped from atop a tall building. 

Ultimately, I cobbled together the following pages in an attempt to convey the emotions I felt during one of the hardest times of my life, emotions like loneliness, depression, overwhelm, despair, and, eventually, hope. It is my belief that these highly personal, highly individual emotions can be accurately conveyed only through a story and its characters.

Much of my fiction is autobiographical in the sense that many of the events and emotions in my stories actually happened to me. The characters in my stories, however, are clearly not me. Or are they?

--JFM

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 410 KB
• Print Length: 54 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0982797370
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Asymmetrical Press; 2nd edition (June 13, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B008BIGQNI
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,805 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Very indulgent, too much about the words and not the story June 22, 2012

By Judoka

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Two things first:
1) It is hard to put yourself out there, in any medium. To do so opens yourself to praise, as well as criticism. I commend Joshua for putting himself out there.
2) I am not a reader of Josh's theminimalist.com blog. My wife is though, and that's how I became aware of this novella. If you haven't read Josh's blog you may find my review to be coming from a more neutral place, given that many of the reviews seem to be a little over the top (comparisons to Picasso and Faulkner for example).

I'm mostly going to focus on the foreword because the author's opinions on storytelling affect the novella greatly:

1) "'Nobody reads fiction anymore. The novel is dead. Nobody has time to read made-up stories these days.' We've all been told these lies for years". ***I've never heard this before in my life. For instance: Fantasy, James Patterson's stuff, Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc.
2) "While genre fiction - vampire, teen, paranormal, and the like - may have given birth to a new kind of readership, not nearly as many people read serious, literary fiction in today's busy, entertainment saturated world." ***This made me leery because it suggested that the author saw his kind of work as the only work that matters.
3) "...literary fiction is the only creation that can provide an exchange of consciousness between its author and its reader, conveying raw emotion and internal feeling far better than Hollywood movies... or even narrative nonfiction." ***This is an incredibly - and I wish I could use a different word - arrogant statement. Watch Life is Beautiful or Saving Private Ryan and tell me those don't convey raw emotion. Also, there is no exchange between author and reader in a book; it is a one way street. A lot of people are going to dismiss this entire review based on my next comment, but like them or hate them the only true "exchange" in a creative medium is in video games, given that they actually alter the content based on the person's experience. BTW, in the interest of full disclosure I am a game designer, although this doesn't preclude me from reading a tremendous amount of fiction, including "literary fiction". I assume Dickens, Dumas, and Austen suffice Josh's standards.
4) "...this book is short, but it's also reasonably difficult; it can be read in a few sittings, though you'll also be challenged by its more rigorous aspects like, for example, the 714-word sentence that ends the first chapter - a sentence I spent a month crafting." ***Nobody knows how long a sentence was unless they meant it to be long. And it's a good paragraph, don't get me wrong - I understand the intention of building momentum through that sentence. But you shouldn't KNOW the sentence length unless that was important to you, and that is the case here. Also... why on earth would you WANT your writing to be perceived as challenging to read?

So in general? This is a story about writing, and by that I mean that the author was more interested in writing a piece of "serious, literary fiction" than an entertaining novella. The words are heavy and overwrought, often sacrificing meaning for a clever turn of phrase. Metaphor and simile are cast about like confetti at a wedding that is beautiful in its creation, but cold and dormant in its aftermath (see what I did there?).

At any rate, if you liked the short stories they made you read in high school this will knock your socks off. Otherwise I'll leave you with a quote from one of those companies that is incapable of "conveying raw emotion and internal feeling":

"You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be very different."
- Pixar

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Dissapointing June 21, 2012

By Nuada Citlali

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Like many of the reviewers, I got to know the author from The Minimalists' blog (a really helpful blog, go visit if you haven't already). Accostumed to the author's style, I somewhat knew what to expect, but I was still curious to know if his style of writing (short, ordered, simple) could create something great in fiction. In short, I expected it to be simple yet profound, "clean" and complex.

The fact is, this work isn't powerful nor enganging: it's bland and predictable. If I had to photograph what his fiction evokes, it'd be a pile of organized, folded, clean clothes you don't care about. It's as thought-provoking as Paulo Coelho.
I greatly appreciate that his work is available for free (at least will be temporarily), but I'd be disappointed if I had spent money on it.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Bite-sized, High-end June 18, 2012

By Colin Wright

Format:Kindle Edition

There are plenty of reviews here that tell you about the topic of the book, so I'll focus on my experience of it.

Days After the Crash is one of the more satisfying reads I've had in a long time. Like high-end chocolate, it's served up in a bite-sized portion, which is perfect, otherwise I might have been overwhelmed by the richness of the storyline and words used to tell it.

This is a quick read, but one that you'll be thinking about long after it's done. And while you're reading it, you'll be completely engrossed.

More About the Author

Joshua Fields Millburn left his corporate career at age 30 to become a full-time author and writing instructor. His essays at TheMinimalists.com have garnered an audience of more than 100,000 monthly readers.

Millburn is the bestselling author of three fiction and four nonfiction books and has been featured on CBS This Morning, ABC, NBC, FOX, NPR, CBC Radio, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times, Forbes, Elle Magazine, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Seattle Times, Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, Vancouver Sun, Village Voice, LA Weekly, Zen Habits, and various other outlets.

He has toured internationally and has spoken at Harvard Business School, SXSW, World Domination Summit, and several other organizations, schools, and conferences.

In 2012, Millburn co-founded Asymmetrical Press, an independent publishing company and community that embraces new technologies, methods, and ideas to help writers and creators reach an audience.

Born in 1981 in Dayton, Ohio, Millburn currently lives in Missoula, Montana. Read more at his website, JoshuaFieldsMillburn.com.

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#35 in Books > Self-Help

#46 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting

#35 in Books > Self-Help

#46 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting