Under the Neurotic Hood

Over the years, I’ve found myself somewhat bored with traditional fiction and media. I tried to develop my own stories, but I couldn’t maintain any semblance of interest. Then I stumbled upon the worlds created by people like Larry David, Philip Roth, and David Foster Wallace, and I determined that I only liked pieces which were not “normal” in the traditional sense. I liked the combination of slightly unreliable first-person awareness and situational comedy. In this vein, I began experimenting with a “voice” of my own.

I came up with the idea of writing “neurotic fiction” after writing a piece on an experience at a championship basketball game, A (Something) of the Away Team, which you will find in this collection. I found that putting an unstable character in a situation that is relatable for normal and abnormal people alike, and doing so from a first-person perspective, is an intriguing adventure.

As I came up with ideas for different stories, I realized the possibilities were nearly endless. However, writing as a neurotic character is exhausting; after working on a dozen or so stories, I decided the overall collection said what it was intending to say, and I wrote a piece with more finality. While the experiment has been a roller coaster, and while it is extremely challenging to accurately “be” a somewhat crazy person, the process has been a learning experience.

Mainly, I’ve learned that even normal situations can be torturous for those with a proclivity for anxiety, overanalysis, or overall craziness.

As for the moral compass inherent in each of these voices, well, you can judge the characters for yourself.

The group of male “narrators” in these stories was carefully selected. The characters serve as placeholders for the larger idea of neurosis, and you will certainly see some of their common traits. In essence, they are all extensions of the same troubled mind at different stages of life and in different time periods.