Gee, everything’s going great. What a nice feeling. My book THE KIND ONE has come out, to a lot of favorable publicity and reviews. The L.A. Times in particular has been kind to THE KIND ONE: there’s been a review by Eric Miles Williamson, in which he says “the novel itself is of the highest caliber in its genre and makes the leap into literature,” then Scott Timberg wrote a piece about the book and me. I met Scott for lunch at Musso and Frank’s, the historic restaurant on Hollywood Blvd. It was a hangout for some of my favorite writers during the olden, golden days of Hollywood. Sometimes I thought I could hear the ghosts of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Chandler whispering in my ear: Ah, to hell with everything, just get snockered! But I managed to resist the siren call of Musso and Frank’s famous martinis, and sipped genteelly on a glass of Chardonnay.

It was announced in Variety on Wednesday that Casey Affleck would star in and Sean Bailey would produce the movie version of THE KIND ONE. Casey’s been nominated for best supporting actor in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. If you haven’t seen it yet I urge you to. I love westerns–SHANE and HIGH NOON are probably my two favorite movies–and THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES is a great one…dark, dreamy, and thoughtful, not quite like any other western I’ve ever seen. It’s probably closest in feel to Terence Malick’s BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN.

I’ll be having several booksignings over the next couple of weeks, so if you live in Southern California or San Francisco it’d be nice to see you. And if you have any thoughts about THE KIND ONE after you’ve read it (or about my movies or this website or anything else), I’d like to hear from you.

Peace to all living beings.

This here’s my first blog.
One of these days, I’m going to write me a real blog.
Yes sir, I am.