Gerry Hadden's Blog: Writing to the End

My upcoming novel, Everything Turns Invisible, puts the struggle for identity front and center. It’s about a teenage adoptee who’s being released from juvenile detention on an experimental second-chance program. But even though he’s been freed, he still doesn’t know where he belongs.

Funny how the book itself faces the same dilemma. On which shelf will it best fit in? I’ve asked myself this question countless times. My editor on the German-language version (Piper Verlag, 2017) calls it “upmarket literary fiction.” I hope that’s accurate. After all, who wouldn’t want to write a book that’s both “literary” and a commercial success?

But those two types of books don’t always end up in the same section of your local bookstore. Adding to my issue, the main character in ETI tells the story of his childhood in an inter-racial adoptive family, which might make a reader think, ah yes, that makes for an interesting Young Adult title. But in the opening scene Milano Prieto is already 18-years-old and on his way to some strange college “near the North Pole.” That, one might read into the book-marketing tea leaves, makes the story New Adult fiction. Not, as in, adult fiction that is new to stores, but rather a book about a “new adult.” You know, someone too old to be “Young,” and too young to just be “Adult.” Confused? Yeah.

My head spins. But this obsession with categorizing books is only human. It’s what we do, with just about everything. We want to know where we stand in relation to the world around us. We want to know what lies in store for us when we open a book. And to make choices without wasting time. As someone who doesn’t read Fantasy, for example, I’m glad there’s a Fantasy section in most shops. I can just steer clear of it.

I just hope Everything Turns Invisible’s foot in several categories doesn’t leave it languishing in No-Book’s-Land. I hope, as all author’s do, that readers will consider it well written and that 9 out of 10 Walmart shoppers will pick up two copies each as they stare at Oprah singing its praises on the live TVs in Electronics.

And finally that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter to you, potential readers, how old my protagonist is. As long as his story moves you.

For my first-ever blog post on Goodreads, the first blurb for my first novel :)

"The comic novel has fallen out of fashion, as has comedy, and yet our inflated cultural sense of self is still in need of the kind of old-fashioned puncturing Gerry Hadden offers up in Everything Turns Invisible."

- Kyle Minor, author of Praying Drunk

For those of you unfamiliar with Minor, he's up with there with Denis Johnson. I highly recommend his short stories!

Six weeks to go until publication. I hope to use this space to chronicle my approach to the falls. Very excited!