Chatting with Jennifer Oko - Head Case (Book Tour & Giveaway)

Head Case

by Jennifer Oko

Welcome to BK Walker Books Etc. I'm so happy I could join you today at your subtegmento. 

It's apparently, the Esperanto word for attic. It sounds much more interesting this way, no?)

BK: Yes, it does. Looking out the nearest window, (are their windows?) describe the scene you see.

I am sitting a small desk in the attic/playroom, and it only has skylights. In order to see out, I have to look up. It’s gorgeous, so long as I can hold my head that way. I see a few tree branches, a beautiful blue sky, and a little bit of rust around the frame.

BK: Tell us about your office. Is it a mess like mine, or is everything in its place?

Here’s a sneak peak of a passage of the book I am working on now, in which my home office plays a cameo:

Resigned, I closed my laptop and walked across the makeshift home office I had crammed into the corner of our small semi-finished basement, stepping across the detritus of a rambunctious play date that had occurred two days prior, careful not to impale myself with a stray Lego block.  It took dexterity to get to the bookshelf behind the train table without causing myself physical harm, but I got there. I moved aside the tattered Dr. Seuss tomes and a half dozen half-chewed board books and laughed at my own obvious metaphor as I plucked my twenty-five-year-old copy of Crime and Punishment off the shelf.

BK: What is a must-have, such as coffee or a favorite pen, that you need to write?

Electricity. The story of my laptop’s battery could be a murder mystery unto itself.

BK: Haha. I hate laptop batteries myself.  Do you like to write in silence, or do you need music or background noise?

My most focused writing usually happens in noisy cafes. That’s why the battery situation is such a bummer. My favorite cafe just got rid of all the public AC outlets.

BK: Tell us a bit about your hero/heroine, and their development.

The narrator/heroine of Head Case is the ghost of a murder victim named Olivia Zack. In life, Olivia was a PhD candidate in neuroscience who had a penchant for experimenting with psychopharmaceuticals and buying designer clothing she couldn’t afford. In death, her ghost tries trying to figure out both how she was murdered, and in doing so, how her relationship with her best friend had fallen apart. It’s her investigation of her own murder that become the narrative.

One of my friends said HEAD CASE is like a mystery mashup of Prozac Nation and Bridget Jones Diary, which makes me laugh because there is probably some truth there.

BK: As a writer myself, I'm always curious how other writers get through stumbling blocks. When you find a story not flowing, or a character trying to fight you, how do you correct it?

Oh! If I had a good answer for this I might have to patent it! Mostly, I just try to push through, writing scenes that usually have nothing to do with the plot, but that might give me a better sense of how my character moves about in the world. I often write myself into crazy corners this way, but at least I am writing something.

 BK: Using the letters of your first name as an acronym, describe your book...

This is funny to me because for my day job I have been consulting at an enormous multinational NGO and there EVERYTHING is an acronym. I can never figure out what anyone is talking about.

How’s this:

Jealous

Energy

Never

Negates the

Intensity of

Friendship

Even after a drug-fueled

Rub-out

BK: How did your writing journey begin?

My professional writing journey began when I realized that a diary I was keeping during a rather bumpy period in my life read a bit like a novel. Long story short, I took a memoir writing class, cleaned it up, and ultimately it got published! The reviews for Lying Together were really nice, and that helped me sell my second book (Gloss) before it was even half written.

I think that I always wanted to be a writer, but I just didn’t know it.  I co-wrote a novel with my best friend when I was eight (the title was It’s Nice to Be Together and it featured a “together monster” as the central character), but it wasn’t until my late twenties that I really started to embrace the idea of becoming a professional author. Now, being an author is a huge part of my identity. When my son was in kindergarten, he wrote me a card that said (his spelling) “my mom is a good mom bcus she rote books.” I love that!

 BK: Using the letters from the word, Summer, how would friends and family describe you?

I am struggling with this one, so I outsourced it.

Here’s what my friend Maureen offered up (can you tell she’s also a writer?):

Smart as a whip

Unflappable

Merry, but

Mordant

Energetic

Raconteur

BK: I loved it, lol. What is the craziest thing you've ever written about, whether it got published or not?

I think Head Case might be it! As one reviewer said, “there are drug-dealing grannies, pill-popping celebrities, Russian mob bosses, eccentric ex-Soviet chemists, feuding roommates, faltering friendships, bad bosses and a rat named Raskolnikov - so how can you not have fun?”

BK: Tell us one thing you've done in life, that readers would be most surprised to know.

When I was 18, my friend and I stowed away on a sailboat in Italy for a couple of nights. It was a pretty stupid thing to do, but since nothing terrible happened, it’s a good memory.

 BK: What can we expect from you in the future?

The above excerpt is from the novel that I am currently working on. It’s still at that point where I can’t really talk about it though... not so much because I am afraid that someone will steal the idea or that I will jinx it, but more because I am still trying to figure out where I am going with it. But there is a mom, a murder, and a whole bunch of allusions to morbid moments in classic Russian literature.

This or That...

Coke or Pepsi?

seltzer

Night Owl or Early Bird?

night

 Fantasy or Mystery?

 Mystery

Pen/Paper or Computer?

 Computer

Pizza or Burger?

Burger--if my husband is grilling. Otherwise pizza, preferably from Sals.

 Rock or Country?

Rock

Chocolate or Vanilla?

 Chocolate

Beach or Mountains?

Mountains, if there is snow to ski on. Otherwise a beach and a book!

Thank you so much for having us as one of your stops today. It has been great getting to know more about you and your book, and wish you the best of success!

Thank you for hosting me!

About The Author:

Jennifer Oko's first book, Lying Together: My Russian Affair (written under her maiden name, Jennifer Beth Cohen), was published in 2004 and received numerous positive reviews. The New York Times Book Review called Lying Together "riveting" and twice named it an Editors' Choice. The San Francisco Chronicle raved, saying it was "a heady cocktail" and "a quick, juicy read." Her second book, a satirical novel about morning television news entitled Gloss, was a Marie Claire "pick of the month" in 2007 and chosen as a "hot summer read" by USA Today.

Currently working as a freelance writer and media consultant, Jennifer is a "recovering" journalist and award-winning television news producer. A graduate of Columbia University's Journalism School, her career has taken her across the country and around the world.

Additionally, Jennifer's writing has been published in a variety of magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Maxim, Self and Allure.

Jennifer lives in Washington, DC with her husband and their son and daughter.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Head Case

Genre: Humorous Mystery

Publisher: Jennifer Oko

Release Date: February 2013

Amazon

Book Description:

As one reviewer states: "HEAD CASE is an enjoyable gem of a mystery, and more...There are drug-dealing grannies, pill-popping celebrities, Russian mob bosses, eccentric ex-Soviet chemists, feuding roommates, faltering friendships, bad bosses and a rat named Raskolnikov - so how can you not have fun?"

HEAD CASE is a new, exciting and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny mystery from an author whose work has been called "SIMPLY RIVETING" by The New York Times and "SHARP AND FAST-PACED" by Publisher's Weekly. It's like Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones meets Carl Hiaasen's Nature Girl (with a dash of Janet Evanovich's One for the Money) as Olivia embarks on a postmortem quest to deconstruct the remarkable events that lead up to her mind-altering death.

A comic satire of the influence of the psychopharmaceutical industry on American life, HEAD CASE takes Olivia and her estranged friend and roommate Polly Warner on a collision course involving ethically challenged executives, spotlight-hungry celebrities, third-rate mobsters and drug-dealing babushkas. A smart and savvy page-turner, HEAD CASE explores the meaning of personal relationships, emotional intelligence, and mental health while taking the reader on a synapse-stirring, neurotransmitting rollicking ride.

Praise for Head Case

"Head Case is an enjoyable gem!" ~Dan McGirt, Amazon Reviewer

"Oko's writing is as addictive as the pills she pokes fun at!" ~ElevenelevenAM, Amazon Reviewer

"All I can say is that if you don't put ALL YOUR OTHER BOOKS AWAY and read just the FIRST chapter you are NUTS; you will find yourself going and going and I will just say it now --your welcome!" ~Jennifer Elizabeth Hyndman, Amazon Reviewer

Excerpt

EXCERPT one:

It's all very dramatic. Although I suppose on some level, in the end, that is what Polly wanted. I mean, she didn't want anyone dead, certainly not anyone she knew. The opposite really. She once told me she just wanted it all to be very alive. Life. Which is drama, right?

I think she was probably right, that to some degree that's what we all want. Or wanted. If we were going to be satisfied just living our lives with the dull drudgery of the everyday, then why would we spend so much time fantasizing about what's next, what's in, what's hot? If dull drudgery made us fly, Polly wouldn't even have the silly career she has. Celebrity publicists wouldn't exist. No one would aspire to anything. And without aspirational living, who would care about celebrities, luxury goods, or, hear me out now, the pursuit of happiness. Right? So maybe there's a very direct link between our celebrity culture and our societal eagerness to pop a pill.

I know it might sound like a stretch that there could be a connection between designer psychopharmaceuticals and, say, designer fashions, but if you stop to consider that, with the exception of certain celebrity Scientologists, just about everyone who is anyone in the world of the aspirational has certainly popped a few in their time, it makes sense. We live by these assumptions that overnight success is possible, that shiny happy people are models to uphold, that tomorrow any of us could be the next A-lister, the next gazillionaire. Couldn't there be a connection here? If there is a pill for every little micro-problem in our brains, why not believe that there's a quick fix for everything else too? I'm sure Polly used to believe that. I know she did.

This is what's so nice about being dead.

I get to play the role of wise sage, and with an amazing perspective. Because when you die, not only can you flit around the present, you also get to watch stuff in rewind. You get to go inside peoples' heads in the past tense and follow the firings of their synapses, medicated or not, as they spit them toward the present. Yes, Cher, it turns out that you can turn back time. But the catch is-drum roll please-you can't be alive to do it. And so, proverbial remote in hand, I'm now able to backtrack; I can take a look and try to figure out how this all happened to my best friend. And by extension, of course, how this happened to me. How, at the ripe age of twenty-eight, with a future as bright as whatever cliché the tabloids will soon be gushing, my body-the body of Olivia Zack-is lying down there in the back of a black Lexus SUV (license plate NYX1KZ, in the event anyone can do anything with this information) while I'm up here, floating around bodiless in the ether, shape-shifting, wall-transgressing, house-haunting, and whatever else it might be that you imagine we ghosts can do. I'm trying to figure that out as well. After all, this is fairly new for me, too. I've only been like this for a few minutes, just long enough to zip up to Polly's apartment and witness her flailing about, waiting for me to come and comfort her once again.

Anyway, in order to figure this out, it seems logical that before I can fully focus on my ending, I need to go back to the source of the whole mess. Because it's very clear, especially considering the other blood that was spilled near my remains, that I seem to have gotten caught up in a drug war. And I'm not talking crack cocaine. I'm talking Prozac. I'm talking Ritalin. I'm talking Adderall, Lexapro, Zyprexa, Klonopin and what have you. The good stuff. The blockbusters. The billion-dollar babies.

Go get some popcorn. The show's about to begin.

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Man in the Boy or Boy in the Man? Interview & a Few Laughs with Steven Novak - Goats Eat Cans

Well I hope you all go to the bathroom before you read this interview, Steven Novak is in the house and will have you peeing your pants if not just on the floor laughing! Welcome to BK Walker Books Etc., Will the real  Steven Novak, please stand up!

BK: Please tell us a little about yourself...

SN: A long time ago I was a thirty-four year-old man in the body of a twelve year-old boy. Now I’m a twelve year-old boy in the body of a thirty-four year old man. By the time I hit sixty I don’t know what the hell I’ll be. I’m thinking that I might have problems with my joints, though.

I really need to exercise more.

And eat less.

I also need to stop eating while exercising, as it sort of defeats the purpose.

Oh, I also make my living as a graphic designer, illustrator, and writer. Plus I’m married to a woman ten years my senior and I’m a step grandfather (which I guess is a thing) to two kids under the age of two.

I also had a vasectomy when I was twenty-five.
You probably don’t need to know that though.

LOL my kids just looked at me and asked what I was laughing at, but I'm pretty sure they don't need to know that either haha. 

BK: Please tell us a little about your book...

SN: Goats Eat Cans is a book about the always awkward, sometimes gross, often peculiar and occasionally terrifying things that have happened to me in my relatively short existence. There’s a little bit of everything tossed in there. I give a firsthand account of the previously mentioned vasectomy. I talk about the day I lost my virginity, and the time I cracked my head open, and I even delve into the absolute disaster that was the sale and subsequent publishing of my first book.

If you’re the kind of person that loves watching a nincompoop get hit in the groin with a football, this book is for you.

BK: What inspired you to pen this particular novel?

SN: I can’t really point to anything specifically. It definitely isn’t narcissism, because the book makes me look like a fool. In a weird way, I guess I could claim that the writing of it was therapeutic. Maybe? Maybe not. There’s certainly something to be said for trying to find humor in the things you’d really rather forget.

Would I prefer to never think about the time I was jumped by a group of guys while walking home from school and beaten a pulp? Damn straight.

Is it funny that my mother insisted they did it because they were “jealous” of me? Double damn straight.

BK: When did you first consider yourself a writer?

SN: I’ll let you know when it happens. I’m not a writer. I’m not anything close to a writer. I think I’m pretty funny – sometimes – but I’m not a writer. Writers hang out in coffee shops, and have curly mustaches and political agendas, and can type the word definitely without relying on spell check to keep them from looking like an idiot.

I hate coffee.

I hate coffee shops even more.

I also have blond hair.

And no one likes a blond hair mustache.

BK: How do you keep your story flowing?

SN: Plagiarism. Everything else takes too much effort.

BK: Do you ever run into writer's block, and if so, what do you do to get past it?

SN: Sure I do. All of the time. I’ve run into more writer’s block than Kim Kardashian has run into failed relationships. The thing that seems to work best for me is just to let it be. If the words aren’t coming, or the words that are coming are worse than a dance single released by one of the Real Housewives of Someone Should Kick Us In The Face, there’s really no point in trying. If I can’t write, I can’t write. When that happens I usually just move onto something else for a bit.

You’d be amazed at just how much a pizza can recharge the ol’ brain juices.

BK: What is your writing process like? Do you have any quirks, or must-haves to write?

SN: No quirks really – unless you consider the fact that I write in the nude and only in the nude to be a “quirk.”

Truthfully, I suppose it depends on what I’m writing. I’ve had writing jobs that I had very little interest in and I was basically on autopilot the entire time. I wrote a series of YA Fantasy/Adventure novels a couple years ago that actually required me to buckle down and take the process seriously. In the case of Goats Eat Cans the whole act of putting the stories together was pretty laid back. I needed the writing to be fun and therefore I needed to have fun writing it.

Also, for the record, I don’t really write in the nude.

I leave my socks on.

BK: Where do you hope your books/writing will be in the future?

SN: Honestly, if they find their way into the hands of a few people and those people enjoy them, I’ll be a happy man. If they can help me pay a few pills at some point that would certainly be nice as well. It’s not required though.

I’m also not counting on it.

I still have my hooking and I still have street corners, and my hooking and my street corners still pay the bills – after Silky takes his 70%.

BK: What do you hope readers will take away from your books?

SN: My only goal with Goats Eat Cans is to make you laugh. If you laugh I’ve done my job. If you chuckle I’ve still done my job - just not quite as well. If you stare blankly at the words and can’t find the humor in any of it I’ve failed. If you toss your kindle in the fire, find out where I live, and send a mail bomb my way, I think you might be overacting just a bit.

I’ll also be in a hundred little pieces.

And I’ll be dead.

BK: What is one piece of advice you received that you carry with you in your writing?

SN: My high school guidance counselor once suggested that I consider giving up art and start thinking about a trade school. I didn’t listen to him and I have the absolutely massive school loans to prove it. He was sort of a jerk.

Also, he wasn’t that bright.

I would have made a terrible plumber.

BK: What is one piece of advice you would give to new and aspiring writers?

SN: My only advice is to try and have fun with it. Even if you’re a depressed, German-speaking Jew in Prague with a personality disorder that happens to be writing a novella about a man transforming into a cockroach, you should still try to enjoy it.

If you can’t find some enjoyment in what you’re doing, what’s the point?

When writing becomes a job writing starts to suck.

BK: Are you currently working on any new projects? What can we expect from you in the future?

SN: I’m actually working on putting together at least two more volumes of Goats Eat Cans and both of them will be available before the end of the year. Last year I illustrated a picture book for Featherweight Press that should hit stores in a few months. I’m also reworking a novel called Fictional Jerks for release early in 2013. After that, who knows? I’m sort of amazed I managed to plan that far ahead.

I’m going to try and lose fifteen pounds. That’s sort of a project. If you were looking at my belly instead of a monitor you’d realize just how much of a project it is.

I should really stop writing in the nude.

BK: Where can readers find you?

SN: All Goats Eat Cans related nonsense can be found at: www.goatseatcans.blogspot.com. Everything else is at: www.novakillustration.com. I also host a sometimes weekly podcast for my writers group at: www.litunderground.com.

Remember the weird kid with the greasy hair and the odd smell you went to school with? You know, the one who never talked to anyone? That creepy little jerk who sat alone at lunch? The oddball who never took a shower in gym class? The one you imagined might one day go on a shooting spree?

Believe it or not, that kid grew up.

He grew up, he got married, he never shot a single person, he wrote a book, and he even started taking showers after his workouts – most of the time.

Goats Eat Cans is his story.

Follow along as Steven Novak recounts the sometimes hilarious, sometimes hilariously painful, and sometimes painfully hilarious moments that have made his life so wonderfully frustrating. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you might even vomit. No matter what, you won't be able to stop reading.

Goats Eat Cans features 55 stories, 55 illustrations, 99 luftballons and enough nonsense to keep you chuckling and giggling for days on end – or hours – or at the very least a few minutes.

http://goatseatcans.blogspot.com/

Excerpt:

MY CAT SMASHING MOJO

I have a mortal enemy. His name is Jabar.

Jabar is a cat.

Is that lame—to have a cat as a mortal enemy? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If I were you though, I wouldn’t rush to judgment. You don't know this cat. This cat is evil. He's cunning, he's focused and nasty and vile and just plain mean.

He’s smart too.

He’s real smart.

He’s so smart he’ll write your midterm, and he’ll get a better grade than you ever would have.

He's my Lex Luthor.

Of course, if he's Lex Luthor, that would make me Superman, and I can’t be Superman. I hate that goody two-shoes jerk. Plus, I look terrible in red speedos.

Okay, this cat is my Joker. Which makes me Batman.

Yeah, I can deal with being Batman. Not the corny seventies Batman, but cool, pissed-off Frank-Miller-Dark-Knight-Returns Batman. I’ll be the Batman who chews steel, spits iron, and calls Robin a fruitcake.

That Batman’s awesome.

You see, not long after purchasing and moving into our first home, the wife and I had a cat door installed in the door leading into our garage. We then had another installed in the side door leading from the garage to the back yard. This was so our two cats could come and go as they pleased. It was simple. It was cheap, and at the time, it seemed to make perfect sense.

The thing we never counted on was that, while the doors gave our cats the ability to get out, they also presented other cats in the neighborhood with a way to get in.

It really should have been obvious from the start, but it wasn’t.

Okay, so maybe I'm not exactly Batman.

I mean, besides being a hell of a hand-to-hand fighter, a billionaire playboy, and a heck of a detective, Batman was also a scientist. A scientist would have figured out the intricacies of the cat door situation long before installation began.

I first spotted him on a Tuesday morning. I was late to work. I hustled down the stairs and into the kitchen where I planned to snag my keys and head for the door.

He was right there, waiting for me.

There was a very fat cat with a big black spot over his right eye sitting on my kitchen counter. The chubby, eye-patched little bastard was squatting on my tiled countertops without a care in the world—like he owned the place.

Our eyes met and I swear to you, I saw him grin.

Before I could react, he leapt from the counter, shot through the cat door leading into the garage, zoomed through the one leading into the yard, and was gone.

Not only was he smart, he was fast—especially for a dude carrying a couple extra pounds.

Lets jump ahead to Wednesday night. I was awoken by the sound of two cats fighting downstairs. I figured it's just our two cats—because they’re jerks and they fight all the time—so I tried to go back to sleep. Plus, I was in the middle of a fairly fantastic dream involving me, the Enterprise, and an invading horde of hypersexual Orion slave girls.

The fighting didn’t stop.

It wouldn’t stop, and it sounded a heck of a lot more vicious than usual.

I dragged myself from bed, wobbled downstairs half-awake, and clicked on the lights. It was Jabar. He was in my house, and he was beating the snot out of my cats. The black-eyed devil spotted me and escaped in a blink.

The next night, the exact same thing happened.

The night after that, he did it again.

He was toying with me.

The wife and I decided to temporarily close up the cat doors and bring a litter box into the equation. After a few weeks, we tried the cat doors again.

The very next night, Jabar was back.

Damn it!

I’d had enough. If Jabar’s intention was to start something, he should considered it started. It was on! I was done fooling around. I was done playing the straight man, and I was through playing nice. No more games. No more second chances. No more lollygagging, no more pigeonholing, and no more lollypigeons!

If he wanted some of me, he was going to get some of me. He was going to get all of me he could handle, and them some!

I coiled my hands into fists and slammed my knuckles together. I lifted my head to the stars and proclaimed to the heavens above, "Bring it on, bitch!”

The wife heard me from the other room. "Bring what on? Who are you talking to?"

"Nothing...no one."

It was a Monday night—around 11 p.m. I was in the garage, and I was standing to the side of the door leading into the backyard. My eyes were trained on the flapping plastic covering the cat door just below my knees. Hoisted above my head was a brick.

My plan was simple: Cat comes into garage. Cat gets smashed.

Almost elegant in its simplicity, no?

Sort of like a Peanuts comic strip—with bricks and squashed cats.

"Steven, are you in he—" The wife stepped into the garage and immediately spotted me with a brick over my head, a wild expression on my face, and sweat pouring from my brow.

She stared at me for a moment, an indescribable look of confusion on her face. "Steven, what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

Her eyes moved from me, to my smashing brick, and back to me. She wasn’t buying my nothing excuse. "No, seriously, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to crush Jabar with this brick."

"Who's Jabar?"

The cat that keeps coming in here at night."

"How do you know his name is Jabar?"

"I heard the little girls across the street calling him that when they were playing with him in their yard."

Her expression changed. Suddenly, she was looking at me like I’d just taken a dump on the floor—like I dropped my pants and started humping the punch bowl at her company Christmas party.

"So, wait. You're going to stand here in the garage all night so you can smash the cat of the little girls across the street with a brick when he tries to come in our house?"

When she said it aloud like that, I have to admit, it sounded just a little idiotic.

So what?

I couldn’t let that deter me. The plan was the plan, and the plan was set in motion. There was no coming back and no backing down. I had no intention of allowing her to steal my need for vengeance! Under no circumstances whatsoever was I going to let her ruin my cat-smashing mojo. Not today! Not ever again!

"Yep. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

"No, you're not."

"I'm not?"

"No, you're not."

"But I want to."

"You're not smashing that cat."

"Oh."

"Put the brick down and come upstairs."

You've won this round Jabar.

Born in Chicago Illinois, Steven Novak has spent the whole of his life creating. After attending The Columbus College of Art and Design for four years he moved to California where he married his wife. The pair have been together for nearly a decade. He likes pizza. He’s sort of a nerd. He has terrible luck and worse personal hygiene. He also hates having to write bios about himself. He thinks bios are stupid. His work can be found online at www.novakillustration.com

Giveaway:

Follow Steven's tour for a chance to win a signed Chapter Art Illustration, and a signed paperback of Goats Eat Cans. Two lucky winners will be drawn randomly at the end of the tour - follow Steven's tour HERE

Thank you so much for chatting with me today Steven! Thanks for the laughs too :). You were great! Now go buy his book and don't forget to leave a comment here today for a chance to win some awesome prizes at the end of his tour...oh yeah and follow him some more for extra chances to win!

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