Young Junius, Seth Harwood

By Jay Stringer

I sat down with Mr Seth Harwood over the weekend for a great chat about his career and his latest book, YOUNG JUNIUS. We recorded the whole thing, so you'll get to hear it soon in the DSD podcast. I prepared for the chat by reading back through the book, and It reminded me that I never put up a full review.

YOUNG JUNIUS delves into the backstory of a character from Harwood's first book, JACK WAKES UP, but don't think of it simply as a prequel. It stands on its own as a confident, muscular and tightly plotted story.

the book rests on the broad shoulders of Junius, caught with one foot in childhood and the other in a turf war. When his brother is gunned down he sets out to find out who owes him blood. But don't be fooled, there may be a body and a murder investigation, but this is no by-the-numbers whodunit. This is about life on the street, where everything is 'part of the game' and everyone's playing an angle.

Don't tell anyone, but the book is really more of an exploration on the escalation of violence, and of the endless cycle that takes in and spits out the people of the Rindge towers. Everything and nothing happens for a reason here, and the murder mystery element is used in a tasty and subversive way to pull us into the deeper issues at play.

Dont let all my fancy talk of "deeper issues," scare you away, though. If what you're looking for is good dialogue, strong characters and a hell of a lot of shooting, then Harwood's got you covered there, too. There are some very confidently handled set pieces, and an extremely tense finale that's as bold and bloody as a Peckinpah western.

Even as the plot hurtles along at breakneck speed, Harwood knows that the trick to making this whole thing work is to take the time to look left and right, to let the reader see the small details and character moments that make a story tick. Whether it's Junius' first experience of holding a gun, or the drug dealer who's willing to gun down anyone in his path, but who wants to keep his dog out of harms way. We also get some interesting female characters, which I still feel is always worth pointing out in a crime novel, who are far more than the token ass kicking cut-out's that we're often given as interesting.

The projects themselves take on life and character in the book, as we get to see all the different sides in the turf war. The story never stops to tell us who is right or wrong, and never talks down to us by moralising on the issues at hand.

If the comparisons to Richard Price's work seem obvious, they're meant as high praise. YOUNG JUNIUS is infused with the same spirit as CLOCKERS and LUSH LIFE, but it moves to a pace and a rhythm all of it's own, never losing sight of the ending that the characters are hurtling towards, and never giving them a way out of the mess.

If you've read JACK WAKES UP, then you already know about Harwood's style and swagger. It's taken up a notch here as a very strong next step in his writing. If you haven't ready any of his work yet, then there's nothing to lose by diving straight in here with YOUNG JUNIUS.

As I said right at the start, you'll be able to hear us talk about the book soon in the podcast. Why not pick up a copy so that you're ready for the discussion? We'll give you sone time to read it.

Ready...set.....

Young Junius, You Ordered Yours?

By Jay Stringer

In the final week of Russel's epic quest to retrace the steps of the Littlest Hobo we take the chance to talk a bit of Seth Harwood.

Seth has a new book just waiting for you clickety-click on the 'pre-order' button. It's called Young Junius, and if you've been anywhere near the twitters or the blogosphere you might have seen some of the really cool things that Seth's been doing to get the word out.

So today we have a couple of different things going on. First, we're getting to throw some links at you, tell you about the book and where you can get your hands on it. Second, and this is something that really interests me about Seth, I wanted to take a look at the work he does to get his books out there.

First up let's take a look at the book itself. If you've read Seth's first book, Jack Wakes Up, you'll remember the character Junius. What we get here is what the movie biz would probably call a prequel, delving back into the character's past, but that doesn't really do the book justice. What we have here is a stand-alone story. If you've read Jack Wakes Up then great, if you haven't then Young Junius will still be a full story on it's own. The book is set back in 1987, and is a really cool urban crime story. If you like Richard Price or The Wire this is a book you'll want to check out. Here's the official bit;

In 1987, fourteen-year-old Junius Posey sets out on the cold Cambridge (Mass.) streets to find his brother’s killer in a cluster of low-income housing towers—prime drug-dealing territory. After committing a murder to protect his friend, he finds himself without protection from retribution. His mother gives him fifty dollars and instructions to run, but Junius refuses to live a life in hiding. Instead, shocked by the violence he’s created and determined to see its consequences, he returns to the towers to complete his original mission

There is a special edition of the book that's already winging it's way to the folks who pre-ordered it. It's a lovely edition, and you can see Seth showing it off here;

It was a really interesting way to launch a book, giving fans a chance to sign up in advance for a limited edition that, in turn, would help the publisher getting the book off the ground. If you really want to see what an author can do to break new ground and adapt to the modern market, you need to be keeping an eye on our boy.

The full release is coming soon, and here's some linkage again to where you can pre-order the book. You can follow that link, or you could head on over to Seth's website for a more detailed list of sites, but we would also recommend you head into your local store and ask them to order it. See, this is the thing, if you pre-order online then that's cool and all, each order helps push a book u the rankings and get noticed. But if you ask a store to order it in, then they might order in a couple extra. That means that some browser can actually pick up the book, they can read a bit of it, experience it first hand and buy it. How many great authors have you discovered that way?

So that's the book, and that's where you can get it. Go ahead, I'll wait right here. We'll carry on when you get back.

Honest.

Done? Cool. Okay, here's the deal. I said above that Seth is really out of the cutting edge when it comes to this sort of thing. I've talked before on DSD about authors publicising themselves. Each author has to find their own way, their own level. But I'm fascinated by the path that Seth has marked out for himself.

It started back with his first book, Jack Wakes Up. The content was available online long before the print edition. Seth himself podcasted the chapters, giving you free regular content back before the rest of us were taking podcasting seriously. He also made his book available as a pdf download. And you know what? It didn't destroy publishing. I'm not going to really get into the deeper issues at play there, because I don't want to distract from the matter at hand, but Seth really proved something there.

There's also a lot to be said for the way this brings fans into the process. You are a part of the action. You promote the books, you spread the word. In the case of Young Junius you helped facilitate the publication. If you head on over to his site, or to itunes, you'll see there is Junius content there for you to listen to. We can even give you this really cool link to the story itself. Right now. Click it and see. And it's all in the name of getting you guys in on the fun. It makes it into an active process rather than a passive one, and that is probably the real lesson.

Not every writer can be a Seth Harwood, but we can probably all take something from that element. Make people feel involved. Make them have a reason to root for your book.

Seth will be joining us at DSD towers for an episode of the podcast real soon, and we'll have more news for you in future about how you can win a copy of Young Junius right here. But let's keep this interactive process going. What questions would you like put to Seth? What do you want to hear us talk about?