Jeff Somers

Jeff Somers was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and regrets nothing. He is the author of the Avery Cates series of novels published by Orbit Books and The Ustari Cycle books Trickster and Fabricator (Pocket Books). He sold his first novel at age 16 to a tiny publisher in California which quickly went out of business and has spent the last two decades assuring potential publishers that this was a coincidence. Somers publishes a zine called The Inner Swine and has also published a few dozen short stories; his story “Ringing the Changes” was selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2006, edited by Scott Turow and his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris.

Somers's new novel is Chum.

Earlier this month I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:

Oh boy, my reading.

I should be staying up to date with the new trends, what’s publishing, etc. I’m a guy trying to make money by selling books, I should be reading what all the kids and middle-aged former punk rockers are reading right? I am not.

I just got done reading Kings of Albion by Julian Rathbone, which I picked up in a used book store. It’s a historical adventure story that lacks adventure. The characters all come together in India and travel to England during the War of the Roses and get caught up in local events ... and get separated and spend quite a lot of the book sitting around having English history explained to them. MY GOD WHERE ARE THE SWORD FIGHTS? Very disappointing.

I always read a few things at once because I am lazy and forgetful and never remember to bring books with me into place like, say, the bathroom, so I am also reading The Brothers Karamazov (translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew). I started this book sixteen years ago, it seems. I once described it as the Fireworks Factory from The Simpsons, in the sense that I am now sixteen years and 230 pages into this thing and I have no idea when we’re getting to the Fireworks Factory or if there is actually even a Fireworks Factory at all.

I also have Where’d You Go, Bernadette on my phone as an e-Book for emergencies, but so far there haven’t been any so I haven’t started it yet.

Visit Jeff Somers's website.

My Book, The Movie: Chum.

The Page 69 Test: Chum.

--Marshal Zeringue