William Lashner - Official Website

Welcome one.  Welcome all.  Even you, yes, you.  Don’t be shy.

Pull up a chair, rest your feet, have a beer.  Yuengling okay?  (I would have offered you a Rolling Rock, but they don’t’ make it in Latrobe anymore, they make it in New Jersey now, and well . . .”)  Poke around, if you want.  There are some cool pulp fiction stories, details about the Victor Carl series, some essays, even a writing blog if you’re really bored.  No porn, sorry, but really now, can’t you find that on your own?

So, how about them Phils?  You get to the parade?  I was there with my sons.  Pat Burrell on the Budweiser cart, the mayor hoisting the trophy.  And I have this great picture of Jimmy Rollins taking a picture of us, taking a picture of him, taking a picture of . . ..  Am I boring you?  I assume I am because I’m boring the hell out of myself.

Small talk.  We love it so much because we don’t want to have the big talk.  We avoid the big talk at all costs.  That’s why baseball was invented, actually, so fathers and sons would have something small to talk about.  Because if we didn’t have baseball to talk about, who the hell knows what might slip out.

My dad and I, we talked a lot of baseball.  Until it was too late to talk about anything else, and I ended up joining the club.

You know the club I’m talking about, the one you never want to join, although never joining is even worse.  There is no secret handshake, no initiation fee, no meetings, but when you encounter a new member you give him a pat on the shoulder that says you’ve been there, you’re with him, and he should suck it up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.  Welcome to the club, the Dead-Father’s club.

I joined when I was thirty-seven, and it was tough thing to handle.  Kyle Byrne, the hero of my novel BLOOD AND BONE joins when he is twelve, and he never recovers.  It’s not that his father was much of a father, but it was still his father.  One day Liam Byrne is running around with all the secrets to life, just waiting for the right moment to clue young Kyle in, and the next day he’s a pile of ashes in an urn.  And the secrets are in there with him.  And poor Kyle is simply lost.

Until . . . .   Well, that’s the book.  Let’s just say that events conspire to send Kyle on a search for his father’s past, and maybe some of those secrets that ended up in that urn.  And Kyle, being a lost boy without much on his plate, actually finds the most dangerous ones.  And the revelations are, as you would imagine, a revelation.

Maybe give it a try, maybe you’ll find something to talk about other than baseball.  Or just hang out and make yourself at home.  Write me a note and I’ll try to respond.  But whatever you do, put a coaster under that Yuengling.  Where do you think I got that coffee table, Sears?