Devil May Care

by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant

Cooper Bishop is suffocating.Careening toward a dead-end future in the small Appalachian town of Festus, he dreams of escaping to the crashing waves of the California coast.Cooper longs to break free from his neglectful, alcoholic father and the haunting memories of his family’s broken past. He’s obsessed with writing stories greater than his own life experience, so when opportunity presents itself, Cooper and his friend Solomon seize it, setting off on the devil-may-care adventure of a lifetime. But the open road might not bring the freedom Cooper expects.Living by Solomon’s wits and Cooper’s imagination, the two friends scrape their way toward Hollywood as fact and fiction weave Cooper’s life together with the story he’s creating about screenwriter Eddie Vale.In this intricately developed literary departure, bestselling authors Sean Platt and Johnny B Truant explore the powerful force of story and how seemingly inconsequential choices create shockwaves that resonate for decades. Platt and Truant’s masterful narrative will unravel you and challenge your understanding of success, family, and courage.

405 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 29, 2016

About the author

Sean loves writing books, even more than reading them. He is co-founder of Collective Inkwell and Realm & Sands imprints, writes for children under the name Guy Incognito, and has more than his share of nose.

Together with co-authors David Wright and Johnny B. Truant, Sean has written the series Yesterdays Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Dark Crossings, Unicorn Western, The Beam, Namaste, Robot Proletariat, Cursed, Greens, Space Shuttle, and Everyone Gets Divorced. He also co-wrote the how-to indie book, Write. Publish. Repeat.

With Collective Inkwell
Yesterday's Gone: Post Apocalyptic - LOST by way of The Stand
WhiteSpace: Paranoid thriller on fictitious Hamilton Island
ForNevermore: YA horror that reads nothing like YA Horror
Available Darkness: A new breed of vampire thriller
Dark Crossings: Short stories, killer endings

With 47North
Z 2134: The Walking Dead meets The Hunger Games
Monstrous: Beauty and the Beast meets The Punisher

With Realm & Sands
Unicorn Western: The best story to ever come from a stupid idea
The Beam: Smart sci-fi to make you wonder exactly who we are
Namaste: A revenge thriller like nothing you've ever read
Robot Proletariat: The revolution starts here
Cursed: The old werewolf legend turned upside down
Greens: Retail noir comedy
Space Shuttle: Over the top comedy with all your favorite sci-fi characters
Everyone Gets Divorced: Like "Always Sunny" and "How I Met Your Mother" had a baby on your Kindle

Sean lives in Austin, TX with his wife, daughter, and son.
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanplatt
 (say hi so he can follow you back!)

Reviews

[Tomyris · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's all very meta, very quantum. I think.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. In order to GET said ARC, I had to let Sean and Johnny see my other reviews.

Brave lads that they are, they sent me a copy anyway.

From my perspective - well, I have to admit that I have read far more than my fair share of pretentious codswallop great literature, and I'm here to tell you that a lot of it isn't worth the paper it's written on. So I was not wholly thrilled at the thought of a literary effort from the boys, but then again, these are the same authors who brought us a fat vampire and a unicorn western: how far down the Boulevard de Médiocres-Artes could they drag me?

(Quite far, actually. I've read HARDY. The Juvenilia too.).

Thusly, qualms to the wind and trepidations athwart the focsle, I tackled Devil May Care.

Urk. Road trip. Please no. So over that with Kerouac. But I pressed on, and it was over, quickly-ish and not too painfully, through meticulously but not tediously drawn portraits of youthful and middle-aged folly, through the real and fictional representations of a pair of friends. At times I wasn't quite sure whether I was reading about the 'real' protagonists or their thinly-disguised 'fictional' counterparts, and at times I thought I caught an error - a 'real' person turning up in the story version, or a fictional character becoming reality - and meanwhile a real person was gradually turning into a fictionalised version of another real one, but I did not, and could not stop to check.

And it did not matter. Cooper writes himself into being, or becomes a shadow of his famous literary persona. Whether Cooper is, or becomes, who he is by means of living his life or writing it, whether his personal history is recorded honestly or heavily embellished, or indeed whether the people in his life are any realer (is that a word?) than his representations, is quite irrelevant, and utterly fascinating.

We are our stories? We are the narrative we have created out of our selves? The heroes or anti-heroes of our own play?

Whatever. It was an absorbing read. Thanks, guys!

[Margarita Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing story about the struggles of the creative process. Like their other literary endeavour, Axis of Aaron, Devil May Care is concerned with identity and finding our true selves. It seems that when Platt and Truant say they're writing something literary, they actually mean "experimental" which is a particular type of literary fiction. They enjoy playing with the reader's expectations. I found Axis too confusing, but this one much more accessible.

[T.W. Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read quite a few Platt and Truant books now, and although some have their faults, I’m always entertained. They’re not afraid to try new things, and with this, their second ‘literary’ book, they pushed things further with their writing.
And the start is fantastic. It grabbed me straight away, and I was certain this would become my favourite of theirs. I loved the main character, even though he wasn’t particularly likeable. I didn’t trust everything he said (wrote), but that just added to the intrigue. And I started anticipating when things would all start to collapse for him.
Then the second narrative came in, and I enjoyed this, too. It starts off like something Cooper has written, but that’s not stated outright. Maybe it’s what happened, and the first narrative is the fiction. Maybe they both are, or neither.
I’ve listened to the authors’ Backstory podcast where they talk about Devil May Care, and they discuss when they aim for the reader to understand what’s going on. I don’t know if I was looking too closely for the twist, but I got it long before they wanted me to. And this was a problem. Already having figured out how the two narratives corresponded, the book started to plod. Every revelation felt like it should have been a ‘wow’ moment, but I found it hard to get excited about them.
Yet there are still strengths in the second half of the book. The interplay between the characters is very well done, and the dialogue is wonderfully multi-layered. Platt and Truant are apparently going to write a romance, and on the strength of the character writing in Devil May Care, I can see them succeeding in this (although I doubt it will be a typical romance).
Giving this book a rating is hard. With the second half dragging, I was tempted to give it a three, but this does contain some of the finest writing these authors have done. And I have to remind myself how well the beginning worked at pulling me into Cooper’s world. If the rest of the book had lived up to the promise of the start, it would be a five without a doubt.
So a four seems fair. Not perfect, but definitely worth a read.

[Cheryl Sterling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I admire Sean and Johnny. Plus it was on Kindle Unlimited, always a plus.
Cooper is a compelling character-hindered by the small Kentucky town he grew up in, he longs for a better life. He, with his best friend Solomon, finally break away and head west. Solomon hustles his way into the Hollywood scene, and Cooper becomes a successful script doctor.
*Spoilers* What I struggled with was Cooper's shitty attitude. He torpedoes any chance of happiness, usually pulling everyone he cares about down with him. He never believes in himself and his only method of escaping a self-imposed exile from the world is destructive and painful.
Technically, the book hits all the marks. Plot points happen at the correct spots. I did get sucked into Coop's world, which I guess is the whole object, but I didn't much care for him or cheer for him in overcoming his struggles. And the storm scene, where Cooper and Acacia should have been doing something else more important than arguing page after page? It wasn't very responsible of them and made me dislike them more.
Cooper's growth was so long in coming, I gave up on him, which is not something a writer wants a reader to do. I stuck it out to the end out of respect for the authors. I'm glad I did. Like Coop's attempts at finishing his book, there were many endings. I'm satisfied with the one chosen, but it was a long time in arriving.

[Jarkko Laine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's start with a disclaimer: I received an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. But even if I hadn't, I would have bought, read and liked the novel — now, I just got to read it before it was even published!

Devil May Care starts super strong. The way Cooper and Solomon, the story's protagonists, are presented, living their lives in Festus somehow reminded me of a modern (or almost modern, the beginning takes place in the 1990s) time Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. I had no idea how the story would unfold, and I loved it.

As the guys set out on their adventure towards an open future in California, I felt the suspense slowing down for a while. But luckily, only for a few chapters, before leading to a very compelling and complex ending that ties all the loose ends without falling for any romantic clichés.

I really enjoyed the story, even if it didn't quite reach the level of Platt and Truant's previous literary fiction, Axis of Aaron (which still remains one of my all time favorite from the duo). And I loved the way it talked about writing, the true struggles of working in fiction and how words and reality sometimes are hard to distinguish from each other.

[CATHERINE · Rating 2 out of 5]

As I read this book I kept thinking of the TV series - Californication. The main character just reminds me of Hank Moody consistently throughout. The start of the book has a teenager and his friend leaving their small town for a bigger, brighter future. Essentially it is the story of a writer and the creative process, but it felt like Groundhog day. Over and over we read the same words, as the writer writes and thinks it is rubbish and throws it away and then writes again. The repeative nature of the story and the revelation during the storm that seems self evident long before that point meant that it was hard to engage with the characters and while he struggles to find an ending I struggled to care. I know this was a labour of love for the authors and I wish I liked it more.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, Truly Amazing!

I love books that are effortless to read. I started Devil May Care not knowing what to expect, but it was like pulling a loose thread, the entire story unravelled effortlessly; magically. I couldn't put it down.

Cooper wants to be a writer, Solomon believes he can make it happen. Propelled by circumstances they head out on an adventure impossible not to follow.

This is a wonderfully heartfelt story filled with beautiful prose and breathtaking characters. Cooper's journey will keep you guessing, but it's a journey we all wish we could take; if only we had the courage.

Would I recommend this book? God yes!

[Dianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book could have kept my interest if it was about 100 pages shorter. This book took WAY too long to get to the resolution. It seemed as if the last quarter of the book was filler (until about the last 10 pages). Didn't have me running back to read the book. I could care less about the characters.

[Ann Thomas]

Writing is up to the usual standard, but I did not finish due to the language and sex. Such a shame.