Jordan Harper's Blog

I've been really flattered by the kind words that people have had for American Death Songs (on sale now, I might mention). Here are some quotes:

"Hardboiled and violent, Jordan Harper polished this work with fine-grit sandpaper. These stories were exercised like racehorses before publication. There is an exquisite economy to the words, skill and cadence in the sentence structure. The result is an impressive, disciplined work with literary merit, masquerading as hardboiled pulp." - Anonymous-9, author of Hard Bite

"I've never read a Jordan Harper story that didn't leave me shaking my head at what an immense, immense talent he is. And I'm saying this with the guy still owing me sixteen bucks." - Todd Robinson, author of The Hard Bounce.

"Best collection since Knockemstiff ... The collection reads like your favorite band's greatest hits record, not a clunker among them. Sometimes short story writing feels like a dying art. And most of the ones I read I soon forget. That will not be the case here. Comparing a collection to the masterful Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock is not a compliment I throw around lightly. It is a deserved mantle here. This will be one of the best collections you ever read, guaranteed." Joe Clifford, author of Choice Cuts

 "Unsparing, brutal, and strangely beautiful." - Allison Glasgow, editor at ThugLit 

"There is something deliciously poetic in Jordan Harper's gritty prose. Like being hit with brass knuckles while your sweetheart slips you the tongue, his words draw you in, smack you hard and leave you breathless." Chris Leek in Out of the Gutter 

"Nobody makes me more pants-pissing jealous of their f-ing chops than Jordan Harper" - Jedidiah Ayres, author of Fierce Bitches.

This post is for me as much as it is for anyone else. Here's a list of titles of things that I have in progress, hope to complete or may someday start.

The Wedge

Ride or Die

How to Kill

The Demon Cleaners

Dead Game

Give Me Sugar, Joe Colombo

The Wartime Consigliere

El Rey

The Lion and the Mouse

I was interviewed this weekend by Bryon Quertermouse.

I’ve got a lot of raw dough proofing right now, a lot of rough drafts of things that I’m going to be fixing and hopefully publishing in 2013. I’ve got one novella, How to Kill, which is a really bleak noir about a suicidal, Doug Stanhope-ish comedian who becomes the MC of a drug-den bar in the high desert. I’ve also got the rough draft of a novel, tentatively called Ride or Die, which is a modern take on Lone Wolf and Cub about an ex-con and his daughter, both marked for death, taking on a white-power gang in Southern California. And I have something about dog fighting that might be a novel or a novella called Lucy in the Pit. The first part of it was published in the new ThugLit #1.

Buy it now.

When you're preparing to sell an ebook on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, they give you the option of either inserting Digital Rights Management software into your book or keeping it DRM-free. I've chosen to keep American Death Songs DRM-free. It's better for the people who buy the book, as they'll be able to control the files more freely. But it's also better for pirating. And I'm okay with that.

First off, just to be clear: I think it would be really awesome if you chose to buy ADS. Every part of this book that cost money - from copyediting to the totally bad-ass cover design - was paid for by my own independant company. In other words, me. I also went out of pocket to fund a short film that is connected to the book and I think you're going to love, and that I will be distributing online for free. If making this book and film works out financially at all (breaking even would be great), then I'm planning on publishing some novellas and a novel later in the year, and maybe making more short films to go with them. I'd really like to maintain this level of quality (really, look at that goddamn cover). So if you can spare the money, I hope you'll buy the book.

But maybe you're a little short on cash right now, or maybe the book isn't available in the country you live in, or maybe you're not sure that my stuff is worth the money. I get it. Download the sucker and give it a read. If you like it, spread the word. And if you want to buy a copy later on, that would be great. (If you're of the opinion that information should always be free to everyone all the time, I disagree with you, but of course that doesn't matter and you're free to download the book as well).

Back when I was broke I downloaded music and even TV shows (don't tell my bosses). Doing so made me a huge music and TV nerd, and now I've spent enough money on music and DVDs to pay for what I downloaded fivefold. If someone downloads my book and it turns them into a fan of crime fiction, or of me, well I'd call that a win. Maybe they'll by the next one. Or at least tell someone else to check it out. 

I've never been a believer in karma. I mean, Dick Cheney, right? But nowadays artists (and wow do I shudder to use that work to talk about myself) have a chance to see karma in action. The more you give away the more you get. That's why I made the short film about which there will be more later, and it's why I'm not interested in using DRM.

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Over on my Twitter feed, I spent part of last year compiling a Murder Ballad a Day. Murder songs bind together some of my favorite genres of music: country, hip-hop, metal, the blues ... almost every genre has its murder songs. Hell, the Skrillex songs I know all sound like if they had more lyrics, the lyrics would be about killing. While copyright claims have taken away a chunk of the songs away, there's still a pretty decent record of my efforts to be found at this YouTube playlist. Enjoy.

My new story "Lucy in the Pit" is in the new ThugLit available now on Amazon for your kindle or kindle ap. But it here.

"Lucy in the Pit" is a story I've been researching and working on in some form for over four years now, and I'm glad to get at least part of the story I have to tell into the brand new ThugLit. In other words, I'm hoping for a sequel in the coming months. But there's a lot more going on that I'm hoping to tell you about soon.

I've disabled my fiction section for the time being, as I'm currently editing together all my short work and I don't know how much I want up here. Big stuff coming, and someday this website will have a reason for existing.

In no particular order, here's ten of the most outstanding walks on the wild side that I took in this year.  I spent a lot of '10 in the bunker that is writing for a network teevee show, so I'm not drawing from as deep a pool as I'd like, but I still have some strong recommendations for fellow crime-fiction/film/whatever lovers.

10.  Sons of Anarchy, "NS"

Kurt Sutter and Co. pulled out all the stops for the season-three finale, filling it with twists, turns, bloody violence and a final few minutes that redefine the struggle between characters that makes up the character's hearts.  I'm looking forward to what season four holds.

9. Winter's Bone 

When I first got to Hollywood I had dreams of adapting Daniel Woodrell's most cinema-friendly novel, Winter's Bone.  A young girl in the Ozarks must walk among the hardest of her people in an attempt to find her father's body and save the homestead.  In the business we call that a logline, and that's a juicy logline right there.  I was bummed to learn the movie was already in production when I went after the rights, but it's hard to argue with the results.  Watch it.

8.  Lethal Injection by Jim Nesbitt

I've been thinking about distancing myself from the word "noir" recently.  It's becoming just a little overused, and a little non-descript.  Let's not forget about "pulp," let's not forget about "hardboiled," or even finding new labels for the rough stuff.  But Lethal Injection is pure noir, "midnight noir" as Jed Ayres called it recently.  Reprinted this year to much huzzahs, this story of a death-row doctor investigating the crimes of a man he put the needle to is as dark a tale as you'll read, and maybe the best novel I read this year.

7.  Breaking Bad Season Four

Leaving little doubt that it's the best show on teevee (don't you mention Mad Men to me), Breaking Bad overcame a bit of a slow start to tell the story of two men who've signed a death pact with each other for reasons they don't seem to fully understand, much less articulate.  The show also deserves recognition for dealing with the most important crime story of our era, the Mexican border wars, at a time when Hollywood seems convinced that there aren't enough white people in Mexico to make the story worth telling.

6.  True Grit

Proving that middle-of-the-road Coen Bros. movies are better than 99% of the movies out there, True Grit can be paired with Winter's Bone in a stellar year for strong teenage girl protagonists (and I'm sure that the novel True Grit was on Woodrell's mind when he penned Winter's Bone).  The movie does suffer from the same thing as the novel, namely a bit of a sloppy third act, but the performances and cinematography (get down with your bad self, Roger Deakins) is the stellar stuff we've come to expect from the Coens.

5.  Grinderman 2

Not literally about crime, but this sloppy chunk of gutbucket rock should be the soundtrack to every meth-fueled Bonnie and Clyde crime spree of the next few years.  Go to the website and watch the video for "Heathen Child" and tell me I'm wrong (not safe for work, yo).

4.  Pike by Benjamin Whitmer

See, this is what I mean.  Is it right to call Pike noir?  I'd say no.  It's dark pulp, too explosive and lurid to make it as noir.  But that's no slight; Pike is brutal good fun, with more interest in the beauty of hard language than any other recent crime fiction that I've read.  Pick it up.

3.  Gutter Books

I'm glad to see one of my favorite print rags expanding into the book publishing biz.  The future of fiction may be on Kindles and the Internet, but the now of making a living means wood pulp turned to paper.  Gutter Books first anthology, which yes, I am in, and yes, therefore this is all tainted and corrupt, is as fine a sampler of depravity as you can find in modern day meatspace.

2.  The Death of ThugLit

Am I really cheering the death of one of the most influencial and highest quality crime fiction zines of the last decade?  The zine that gave me my start and published me more than anyone else?  The zine that is more responsible for my current place in life than just about anything?  You bet I am.  Because I'm friends with and a fan of Todd Robinson, and I know just how much sweat and blood he put into ThugLit, and I'm estatic that he's now freed up much-needed time to get us a novel or two by the end of '11 (you hear that, Todd?).  We'll always have the great anthologies (order them!), now it's time for the future.

1.  Harlan County U.S.A. (on Netflix Streaming)

Okay, the movie's as old as I am, and Criterion re-released it in '06, not '10.  So why's it make my top 10 list: A). The documentary is available on Netflix streaming, which is one of the best things to hit its stride in '10 and B). because I'd never seen it before and it's the best movie I saw this year.  The battles, both legal and illegal, between Kentucky coal miners and the bosses are as raw and compelling as anything I've seen this year, and the sight of an old woman telling a crowded union hall that "they'll never shoot the union out of me" while pulling a gun out of her bra is an image of America at its best.  An incredible movie; watch it now.