Our apostophe’d segments come to a conclusion with this chapter. That’s the truth. Eagle Scout’s honor.1
Much like the ends of parts 2 & 3, this is a coda chapter designed to ease Local Boy back into his present day with newfound confidence from the future before pulling the rug out. Early readers were mixed on the internal monologue-ness of it (my specialty but an acquired taste), which led to the idea of having his thoughts occur while literally dancin’ around the house with his wife.
“Lyin’ Eyes” was always the chapter title for this one, both being on theme and a callback to the TP narrator saying his appreciation of music came from his parents love of “The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, The Clash, and The Ramones.” Being the first song on side 2 of the vinyl was a nice bonus.
Tidbits:
- “…”2 as the first thing someone “says” was a snarky reaction to feedback saying the scene needed more dialogue earlier, but lit the spark that inspired the dancing structure.
- I was worried “wishy washy” might be anachronistic for the 1970s — and about fell out of my chair learning it originated in the late 1600s.
- For a few drafts the line went “any inkling of clearly thinkling” but I couldn’t leave it there with a straight face. (Auto-correct doesn’t want to let me do it either!) On the Ifsandsorbuts album it’s a very memorable earworm of a lyric.
- I bent my brain in all different directions trying to find a way to allow Sam Cooke to die at 27 but still have Local Boy know “What A Wonderful World” which wouldn’t have been written anymore. The eventual “duh!” solution was to have the redhead already save him by the time this scene rolls around.
- “Think, thank, thunk” is a little bit Dr. Seuss, a little bit Timely Persuasion‘s “Thunk rhymes with drunk…” Two people simultaneously singing different songs with the same title reminded me of Benji Hughes splitting his band in half to perform “All You’ve Got To Do Is Fall In Love” & “So Much Better” simultaneously one night at Largo.
- One of These Nights by The Eagles was released on June 10, 1975. Local Boy gets back on July 5th, hence he hadn’t heard the album yet. He also missed Independence Day. An old draft slipped in the old “we had so many fireworks, we missed the fireworks” line from my Quantum Leap spec script. I dropped it for being too forced.
- The first mail order paternity test debuted in 1921!
- I’ve always known the narrator of Timely Persuasion was named Carter Timmons even though it’s never revealed in the other book. It is in my circa 1999 short story “Paradox Lost” which later became the first chapter of TP in slightly edited form.
- Remember that thing I mentioned I do to get out of writer’s block by riffing on something mundane? Having Local Boy learn how to play all of the song/chapter titles he recognizes from Timely Persuasion is a much less mundane variation on that theme. Speaking of less mundane, check out these annotations!
- Lobo Dogo was the very last change I made before releasing Local Boy Done Gone. A total eleventh hour panic move that L.B. on the list of 27 was too obvious but Lobo Dogo had a better chance of sneaking by a reader undetected.3 It still says L.B. on the back cover artwork of the paperback– originally because I forgot it was there, later retained as an overthunk red herring of a red herring.4
Check Out Local Boy Done Gone
FOOTNOTES
- I wasn’t an Eagle Scout. Neither was Local Boy. Joe Walsh was one of those things, but he also wasn’t yet. ↩︎
- If the pronunciation of !!! is chk chk chk, what does an ellipsis sound like? ↩︎
- Unless said reader Googles it and finds this page. Spoiler! Spoiler! ↩︎
- My slippery logic: If people think he’s on the list from the back cover, when the initials aren’t actually on the list in the main text they’ll think it was just a promo thing and dismiss their own guess early on. ↩︎