Author Spotlight: Joseph Garraty

Like it says in my official author bio, I’ve had a lot of jobs. I’ve done construction work, engineering, tech writing, and a mess of other stuff besides, but the one that warrants further discussion today is one of my favorite jobs: deadbeat rock musician. I say “deadbeat,” because I never paid the bills with it, at least not for long, but I have played in one rock band for another for over ten years now. One thing I can say with authority is this:
Rock musicians are some messed-up people.
You jam four or five of these highly-driven, super-creative types in a room together, stir in a generous helping of ego and two generous helpings of flakiness, and you have a recipe forinteresting times, as the fabled Chinese curse says.
Those interesting times, though often maddening beyond belief, are high-octane fuel for learning all about how people interact under some pretty stressful circumstances. When I turned my hand to writing my dark fantasy novel, Voice, I had a lot to draw on.

The setup for Voice is simple: Johnny’s a lousy singer for a mediocre rock band, and he wants to be famous more than anything. Case is a hotshot guitarist with an enormous chip on her shoulder who happens to need a band. When she joins up with Johnny’s band, Ragman, the group gets a jolt of new life, and it soon becomes obvious that Johnny doesn’t have the chops to keep up. But somebody’s been watching Johnny. Somebody who can give him a voice to move millions. . . if he’s willing to make a deal.

But when you deal with the devil, you never get quite what you bargained for.
Given the personalities involved, the band situation is complex enough (especially when Case starts to fall for the drummer, Johnny’s brother Danny), but when some of the more bizarre side effects of Johnny’s deal start to become apparent, the group dynamic is stress-tested to its limit and beyond.
That’s when you find out what the characters are really made of—and that’s what gets me excited about any book, not just one of mine.
Check out http://www.josephgarraty.com for news and updates on Joseph Garraty, or buy a copy of Voice at these websites:
Amazon
Smashwords