A Rom-Com That’s Dialed Up to Eleven: Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman

by

Scott D. Parker

Note: I know this is not a mystery novel, but I haven't been this excited about a book in a long time so I thought I'd share here. 

How long has it been since you read a book in four days? For me, it’s been forever. But I’ve also not read a book quite like Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman.

I follow the Writer Unboxed website and a recent Q&A landed this book on my radar. Being a huge fan of KISS, I instantly assumed the reference was a shout out to KISS’s “Detroit Rock City.” Whether or not that was how the author came up with the title of his novel, I don’t know, but that’s what got me in the door.

Oh, and the cool premise.

A single dad, Billy, is watching a rock and roll documentary with his high school senior son, Caleb, when the fictional band Burnt Flowers shows up. Billy, a piano teacher in Baltimore, confesses that he had a huge crush on the drummer, Margot Hammer, back in the day. With Caleb about to go off to college and with his mom married, he worries about his dad will be lonely when he moves away. One of those schools is Stanford, all the way across the country. When Caleb accidentally eats some “special” gummies, he sends an email to Margot who is a rock and roll recluse after a spectacular and public meltdown on stage two decades ago. Caleb invites Margot to come to Charm City Rocks, the record store in Baltimore over which his dad lives. He’s convinced that if the former rock star would just meet his dad, they’d hit it off.

But Caleb knows that Margot won’t just come down to Baltimore so he poses as if he’s a teenaged girl in an all-girl rock band. Margot’s publicist thinks it a great idea to get Margot’s name back out in the world and urges her to go. Reluctantly, she agrees, and then the truth hits the fan.

The Breezy Writing Style

I put the book on hold via the Libby app. The blog post made me curious, but I’d never read anything by Norman—heck, I’d never heard of him—so I thought I’d give the book a chance. I read chapter one at lunch and laughed out loud. Actually laughed out loud. Then I read chapter two before I had to get back to work. At the next day’s lunch I experienced a pull and a choice: I could write more words of my own book or read more chapters of Norman’s book. After I quickly finished my own daily writing, I read more about Billy and Margot, right up until the end of lunch. Holy cow, I was hooked.

The prose just flows, easily. I’m a writer myself so I understand the process: that what we read as a final product is not necessarily the same when the writer is behind a keyboard. But the results are so fluid, witty, and whimsical.

The characters jump off the page, fully formed, and easily understandable and relatable. In addition to Billy, Caleb, and Margot, we meet Robyn, Caleb’s mom, and her husband, Aaron, who has great hair. We get to know Lawson Daniel’s, Margot’s ex-husband, a supremely handsome British actor who is more famous than her. There’s Poppy, their daughter, as well as all the folks on the city block where Charm City Rocks is located. They all come alive in Norman’s experienced writing style and I happily and easily went along for the ride.

A Rom-Com That Feels Natural

I’ll admit: when Christmas season rolls around, the Hallmark Channel is often on the TV. I know they’re a formula, but I just love them. Still, sometimes, the formula is thin and I start doing something else. I mean, how many times can you have the big-city lady return to the small town and re-discover everything she’s missed?

There are elements of that in Norman’s book, but he remixes the pieces in such a way that it all feels fresh. The meet-cute section is incredibly charming and delightful and I was grinning from ear to ear during that section.

But the inevitable obstacles get in the way and cause havoc. What I particularly enjoyed was the comedy part of rom-com. As I already mentioned, I laughed in chapter one. I think I laughed out loud more reading this book than, in well, a long time. Here’s a line from Beth, a bartender, on what the best Neil Diamond song is.

“What are you talking about, you idiot? It’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ all the way. My sister threw her bra at Neil once while he was singing it at the Verizon Center down in D.C. Almost got us kicked out. Apparently, you’re not supposed to do that. Which is bullshit. I mean, how could you not toss your underwear at that man?”

Or how about this one

“I’d love a cup of tea, though,” says Lawson.
“Like, tea tea?” Robyn asks.
“Well, we Brits only say it once, but I suppose you can call it what you like.”

And I’m also fine when characters in a book react almost as if they’re watching the movie that they’re in. For example, here’s a quote from when Billy is talking to Margot:

“I know, and again, I’m sorry. I’ll buy you and Mr. Camera Guy a beer, too, to make up for it. What do you say? I just feel like if you drive off without me asking, I’ll regret it.”
“Damn,” whispers Todd. “That’s a decent line.”

Everything Gets Dialed Up to Eleven

Things just keep getting in the way for all the characters in this novel, and some of them are really fun and outrageous. The twists I thought unpredictable and happily went along for the ride.

But, again, it’s organic in its development. So, too, is the romance element. Norman switches POVs constantly so you get a sense of what everyone is thinking and why they’re doing what they’re doing. But the small moments really shine: the way a person’s kiss tastes, the warmth of a hand on an arm, the smell of pretzels and the memories they conjure. Norman’s observations on human nature are spot on. I imagine many guys who read this book will see themselves in Billy and wonder if they’d do the same thing. Or feel like he does at various stages of this story. And I also really liked the kind of dad he was to Caleb.

When You Discover Someone New

Like so many rom-coms, Charm City Rocks is a story of how two people meet and start to have feelings for each other and how those actions reverberate throughout their community. An excited newness permeates the air and you just want to be around them all the time.

There’s a similar vibe when you discover a new-to-you author. Matthew Norman is now on my radar thanks to this delightful novel. I’m looking forward to reading more by him, but Charm City Rocks will always be special, that first book.

I’ve already told so many folks about it. Now I’m telling you. Add Charm City Rocks to your summer reading list. Your smile will thank you.

Scarstruck - The kinky, queer, commie love story you didn't know you needed

The cover of Violet LeVoit's Scarstruck promises "PINKOS! SICKOS! CIGARETTE BURNS!" and it delivers that - and so much more. When Violet sent me the press kit and called it a romance, she had a hint of warning "It's out there," she said,  despite knowing I'm a long time reader of her work. Of course that kind of warning from Violet couldn't do anything but excite me. This erotic romance is kinky, queer, communist, and while it reads like Old Hollywood filth, the heart beating inside the unpredictable love story is strong. I found myself struck by lines like “The world puts you on a pedestal and knots a noose around your throat. Stepping down means snapping your neck,” and tearing up toward the end. It's hard to know what to root for or even how until Violet points you in the only direction that makes sense.

This Old Hollywood romance might not be for the faint of heart or the prude in sexuality, but it's a good, fast, heart breaking read where you can't help but hope the characters you encounter manage to figure it all out.

I asked a few questions of Violet and she was kind enough to answer.

All three of the characters we spend the most time with are outcasts, even in the Hollywood, where they came to reinvent themselves. It seems to be a story about the cost of denying one’s true self, and about the different kinds of love people can feel for one another. What drew you to this time and place for setting? 



That's exactly it. This book is a hybrid of a psychological novel and a romance (but I make no bones about that it is absolutely, primarily a romance – more about that later.) The setting is strictly a love for Los Angeles and the era, especially through a James Ellroy-esque lens: the contrast between LA's mythologies and its reality, if the place can be said to have a reality. I love Los Angeles because it's like a faerie zone in a fantasy novel – a charged place where the veil between truth and untruth is very thin, because it's built around the movie business that is, essentially, a manufacturer of fiction, which is another way of saying lies. There's a lot of the movie L.A. Confidential in this novel, a little Mad Men, a little Kenneth Anger (another son of LA and the movie business).

Did you find it challenging to keep in the headspace of Old Hollywood? 

Staying in this headspace wasn't hard – it was honestly a delight. I've been a film critic and film journalist for over 15 years now, and before then I was an autodidact film historian, starting from childhood. I love the look and mood and history of the 1950s. I did some research about the realities of being queer/kinky in Hollywood during that time, including Gay LA by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, and The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson by Robert Hoffler.

Ironically, the setting is part of why this book was a hard sell. I didn't know going into it that the market for historical romance is entirely either for books set from the Regency period to World War I, or for books set in the present day. 1920 to 2005 is a blank space with no market. Who knows why? But had I known that, I still would have written this book exactly the way I did.

SEX! The sex scenes are intense and get deep into what might be considered a sort of proto BDSM. It’s not always “safe and sane” although it seems everyone enjoys themselves to some extent. Did you find it difficult to write sex from the perspective of Ron, with his many hang ups and sometimes brutality - or at this point in your career is it harder to get into the more tender and “normal” scenes?

It was super easy to write Ron's POV, since most of his fetishes are mine. (But I have more fetishes than Ron, and I've already said too much, so if you're not currently in my bed I'll just keep the rest a mystery.) I've had male readers tell me that I get into the headspace of male characters very easily, that they recognize themselves on the page in a way that's different and more personal than the standard "male" lens of our culture – which, after all, a lens is not the reality of being someone.

Writing female characters is something I had to grow into, partly because they are more autobiographical – it's not something people would guess from how raw and explicit my books are, but I am actually a very private person for whom it's hard to self-reveal. Writing male characters is just enough of a mask that I feel more comfortable revealing my inner self. (There is a female character in this book whom I am just in love with, though. She is the best character I have ever created. I have no "I love all my children" illusions about that. She's the best.)

Even though the house style for many trade paperback romance publishers is to have a "he said, she said" POV that alternates between chapters, I don't think readers expect a romance to be about a man's emotional life. But men love too. I would like one of the ripples from this book is for writers to think more about romance as a legitimate genre that explores important and vital themes about the human condition, just as legit as any other genre fiction.

As far as the BDSM in this book goes, I wrote it from the POV of someone who's gripped by these fetishes that are deeply embedded in a sexual map that started forming in childhood, and because of his shame and the era he's in he's not part of a community or a public dialogue about best practices, and he's just making it up as he goes along. Sex scenes in an erotic novel should be like musical numbers in a musical – they can't just be boning each other just because. Their coupling is about something just like how a song is about something. And so when there's a sex scene – and there's a lot of them – I used them as an alternate way to express a deeper theme in the character's lives, and where they are on their journey.

But this is the first time I've written about tender, unabashed love, and those scenes were harder to write because a) the line between passionate and stupid is very thin and I didn't want readers to break their suspension of disbelief by snorting at the kind of lines that romance fiction is pilloried for ("My loins are aflame with need, my tempestuous minx"). But at the same time you have to express the intensity of that feeling, of being completely overtaken.

Andy Warhol once said that he loved America because when you see the Queen of England drinking a Diet Coke it's not like she's getting a better one because she's the Queen. It's the same Diet Coke you can have. And falling in love is like that – everyone has the same experience of it, no matter who you are. And it's simultaneously a very unique, rare, exquisite experience that's only yours, and an experience everyone can relate to, if they've been blessed to find it. So that's a delicate thing to write about, and I wanted to get it exactly right.

While the severity of the consequences for gay sex/kink/communism and the other traits and behaviors that our characters exhibit may not be as steep as they were in Old Hollywood - I found myself struggling to think we’ve necessarily come that far. How do you think the themes you work with in Starstruck translate to the modern day?

There are people everywhere right now struggling with their sexuality. It's gotten better for certain groups of people – queer people, kinky people, poly people – but there are so many people wishing they didn't have the fetish they have, or the fantasies they have, or the subject of their desire, or how they want to express those desires. They're everywhere. Let's be clear – just because you have a desire doesn't mean you should act on it, especially if acting on it means inflicting real lasting harm on a vulnerable person. But I think anyone can come to some kind of self-acceptance and peace and equanimity with who they are. And nobody has ever had a better life hating themselves than loving themselves. So that's what I want.

 Pitch this book to someone who’s never read your work and may or may not be a prude:

First of all, I never try to sell anyone on my work. I know all my books are so intense and explicit and speak frankly about so many taboos that I never want to inflict them on anyone, and in fact if I'm making chit-chat with someone and they express an interest in reading my work, I warn them right off the bat that my writing is not for everyone. (I just did the audio book for my previous King Shot Press book I Miss The World and we had to record the last twenty pages twice because the audio engineer didn't notice it had stopped recording, because he had his face in his hands thinking "oh my god oh my god" the first time he heard the ending.)

But having said that, I think there are a lot of people out there who believe the romance genre is not for them. And I would like readers who want to challenge that assumption, that it can be more than pre-feminist ravishment fantasies. It can say something about the human condition, and the subtleties of how we come to love a person, and it can do it while being very sexually explicit, kinky, pansexual, and polyamorous. I guess an open mind is all I ask.

Thanks again to Violet for the opportunity to read Scarstruck and share it with all of you, and the great interview. Preorder Scarstruck for it's Valentine's Day release.

Sex OR Violence

Vice published an article outlining how Amazon has (again) throttled erotic books on their site. The official statement from the retail giant is that it was an accident, and it's fixed now, but this isn't the first time Amazon's policies and practices with erotic books has affected the authors that depend on Amazon for the vast majority of their sales.

I find it interesting because our genre never comes under attack here. Even the ones that feature a lot of sex (many Amazon romance authors report being labeled erotica when they were simply "hot" romances). Seems crime fiction writers can have their characters shoot at each other, stab each other, beat the living shit out of each other, and whatever else we please because we haven't made the mistake of focusing on sex (or being a female dominated genre that deals with love - oft regarded as the most feminine genre, and not surprisingly, oft the most derided).

It's unsurprising that Amazon's policies would favor violence over sex. It's an American tradition, after all. Recently, a tv series I enjoy, (The Last Man On Earth) featured Fred Armisen as a cannibal. We saw him murder and eat people, we saw him dig a corpse out of the ground and eat various parts of his body, and finally, we saw him blow himself up with a puzzle box bomb. But when Will Forte and Kristen Schaal's characters have sex it's an awkward, perfectly still scene, just as last week's SNL featured a "sex scene" that featured a fully clothed woman on the lap of a fully clothed man - perfectly still. Both shows have confirmed it was to appease network censors. See - you can slit throats, eat corpses, and be blown to smithereens on network TV - but if two people wiggle a little during sex, all hell breaks loose.

In a society overrun with violence, and with weird, often harmful views of sex and sexuality, we're still letting whatever violence creators can imagine through, and hiding any instance of two people enjoying each other in a sexual way. This is not to say that violence in books or on TV causes violence - all the strange dancing around sex in entertainment hasn't stopped us from fucking, after all. But it's worth questioning why we accept increasing levels of violence in our entertainment, but freak out if we think a kid under the age of twenty-one might see two people go at it, even in a show like Last Man where the characters were not only married, but actively trying to have a baby. They're straight, too - if it were a porn, it would be the kind that's inexplicably marketed to hardcore religious people.* Still, the sex can't even be a little sexual.

It's weird, right? I don't have an answer, and this isn't exactly a new viewpoint, but I wonder when the reckoning is going to come. When are we going to talk about our weird attitudes about sex in entertainment in a meaningful way? How did we become a society that's okay with blowing up Fred Armisen on Prime Time but not with wiggling on late night TV?

I don't mind violence in my entertainment - some of my favorite books and films feature enough of it that they're routinely labeled "gratuitous." I don't think violent entertainment causes violence. I do think having extremely permissive ideas about hurting people, versus extremely strict ideas about pleasing people is unhealthy. The ideas behind the actions are what worry me. America has some shit to sort out and this is only the beginning of the beginning.



*remember when that was a big news story? A Google session couldn't confirm that it's still a thing.