Table of Contents
Mike Gerber has wrought something rare: alternative history with the sting of first-rate fiction. You consume the pages happily and hungrily, spotting familiar faces and upended clichés, and before you know it you’re not appreciating a stunt, you’re riding shotgun on a quest. Voices come alive and unbelievable scenes take flesh; characters don’t stay in their places, they move and scheme and create their fates on the spot. Gerber delves into celebrity and obscurity, revenge and resentment, irony and pain, while remaining one of the funniest writers alive. In short, if you think you know what you’re in for, trust me—you don’t.—Devin McKinney, author of Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History
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Life After Death for Beginners stars Tom Larkin, an impossibly famous rock icon who dies tragically at the hands of a deranged fan—or so the world believes. In reality, Tom narrowly escapes with his life. As Tom recuperates in a secret hospital for the super-rich, his loving but imperious wife Katrinka becomes convinced that it’s safer for everyone if the musician stays “dead.” Reluctantly, Tom agrees to live out his days in obscurity… until an old enemy reveals that his life is still in danger. Stripped of his former fame and access, Tom has to figure out who tried to kill him without revealing his survival. His search leads him back to his old life, to the manager who made him a star; to the other three members of The Ravins, each dealing with his legacy in their own way; to his estranged daughter and the son who thinks he’s dead and of course, to Katrinka, the eccentric, devoted, public face of the Larkin myth.
What’s this website about?
It’s an experiment—I’m hoping to give my readers a more intense, 3-D experience by providing some of the novel’s wealth of source material. Life After Death For Beginners can be enjoyed perfectly well on its own, but click on the little speech bubble and my comments on that paragraph will be revealed. I also hope the commentary will introduce you to new bits of culture you might enjoy…because it’s all connected, y’see.
Is Tom Larkin John Lennon?
I wrote the book because, like a lot of us, I miss the guy. But any attempt to fictionalize Lennon directly suffers from the “Yellow Submarine effect.” So my character Tom’s not Lennon, but he’s close enough to provide a bit of comfort. I wanted to remind people just how funny Lennon was (something lost in the St. John of Imagine persona), and show how great fame often leads to misery and actual danger—a very important lesson in this Warholian era where everyone, not just rockstars, has to navigate the morass of public and private selves. Don’t worry if Tom Larkin doesn’t conform to your idea of who John Lennon was; he’s not supposed to…But by the end, you might be surprised.
Can I leave a comment?
Yes, please! Comments are welcome, especially ones that identify sources—links to or quotes from books that add more richness to the story. Going back now (June 2011) after three years of research and writing, there are many places where I remember I was quoting, but the reference is buried in my Bookshelf o’ Beatles. Thoughtful analysis and viewpoints on the history are also welcomed—but I’ll be moderating them. I’ve watched several Google Groups deteriorate into flamewars over the merits and demerits of Yoko, and that’s no fun. If you want to see the kind of comments I’m aiming for, take a look at my Beatles team blog, Hey Dullblog. I’m trying to use the internet’s hive-mind capabilities without falling prey to its limitless capacity for slinging mud.
Are you making any money from this?
I’m hoping that people will begin to enjoy the story and buy the whole thing (Print • Kindle • mobi • epub). And if you use any of the links in the comments, I get a small kickback from Amazon. My goal is to make enough money to pay for a sequel or two.
When will you be finished?
There are 17 chapters in all; I’ll try to do them as quickly as possible. If you want to be updated when new chapters are done, drop me a line at [email protected] And if you’d like to encourage me even more buy the book, or use the affiliate links in the comments. Two more stories are burning a hole in my brain! Help me make them happen!
Why not just write a biography of Lennon or The Beatles?
After forty years, The Beatles story has been covered from every angle except one—how it really felt, from the inside. Even the Anthology was carefully packaged for public consumption. If you want to dig deeper, well, that’s where fiction comes in. Cheeky as it is, a parodic, ‘funhouse mirror’ approach allows the reader to escape the preconceived notions of the story we all know. Life After Death for Beginners not only rewrites history in a happier way, it provides a look behind the curtain, allowing the reader to imagine worldwide celebrity not as a desire or a dream, but as a life.
Who are you, anyway?
My novels have sold over 1,200,000 copies in 20 languages worldwide. I’ve contributed humor pretty much everywhere, from The New Yorker to The New York Times to “Saturday Night Live.” Nowdays, in between my novels, I write funny little ebooks, and tend a collection of blogs (mikegerber.com, Hey Dullblog, barrytrotter.com, stuttsuniversity.com). Here’s my bio on Wikipedia, and my fan page on Facebook. You can contact me at contact [at] lifeafterdeathforbeginners.com.
I hope you enjoy the book!
“You sort of wonder when something like that happens, well, who stands to benefit? Who had the opportunity and the motive? You just kind of look at these basic things...I saw that the US government was going to benefit, and the White House people, the Republican administration to take the mind of the public off the crashing economy...And I have spent enough time on the inside of, well in the White House and campaigns and I’ve known enough people who do these things, think this way, to know t [...]
“Th e world gave you its friendship pin But you wound up in the cutout bin Pricked with holes and soaked in sin Suckered in, suffering, trapped by what you’ve chosen…” —unreleased Zimmerman parody (taped 1979, found under my bed, 2009) Let me tell you about the last day of my life. Firstwise, if I had known it was going to be the last day of my life, I would’ve gotten up earlier. But I didn’t, so I rolled out of bed at my usual time, around noon. Then I took a shower, wh [...]
An hour later, the whole world knew what had happened; nothing travels faster than Official Truth. Not that I had any reason to doubt the story, not then at least. A deranged fan named Eric Curtis Thigg had Greyhounded from Atlanta to Manhattan with a cheap .22 and a dream. Twenty-four hours later, he was in custody and I was bleeding out. But why? The obvious answer was that Thigg was crazy, but if a crazy fan were all it took, there’d be more tombstones than stars on Hollywood Boulevard. [...]