![]() I wondered when I started writing if it would seem artificial, and hard to avoid a name in conversations. No other name came, and none seemed needed either. He was just what he was, what he did - an apartment superintendent. MB: With every other character I’ve imagined, a name has come early on, sometimes before I knew anything else (as happens often in real life). Why did you decide not to give your character a name? HRB: The protagonist of The Adjustment League is known simply as the Super. Which adds another word to the genre: psychological noir thriller. He peels back layers of victims and oppressors in both directions, inward and outward. The twist that came in the writing is that the suspenseful journey towards a final reckoning goes out into the world and, simultaneously, deep into himself. The genre was built in to the fabric of what I was imagining. And my character would feel outrage against oppressors of various kinds, and have the aggression to act on his outrage. That is, I knew I wanted to write about the oppressed, the down-and-out, and about a character who is working on their behalf but is also one of them. That said, I think The Adjustment League fulfills the requirements of a noir thriller. If a story has life and texture and depth, as you hope, it will always resonate past the confines of genre. Is this is an accurate description? If so, why did you choose this genre for your story? HRB: Your novel has been described as a noir thriller. ![]() And that laughter - black, jagged - was really the start of it. In the same instant, it seemed, the character walked into my head of a pissed-off superintendent who dedicates himself to adjusting a broken world in ways analogous to the ways he unplugs toilets, unclogs drains, sweeps up litter, evicts undesirables. And the answer was right there waiting, I’d read it often: noir. So I asked myself if there was a genre suited to that sense of scraped-nerve living and the rage (among other emotions) it spawns. And it spiralled me back into my own long history as a mental patient - in hospital, on disability, in roominghouses and subsidized menial work.I couldn’t fit it all into a caregiving memoir. On behalf of my parents, but also on behalf of all the mostly-neglected suffering I was seeing: in hospitals, care homes, hospices. Also, I kept bumping into an emotion I couldn’t find a place for: rage. Soon, to my surprise, I had the opposite of writer’s block: so much pouring out, and no idea how to shape it. So, although I was very burned-out, I started scribbling notes in stolen minutes. I think he was trying to help me keep my hand in. I’d been immersed in taking care of my seriously ill parents for two years when my publisher, Dan Wells, suggested I write a book on caregiving. ![]() Mike Barnes: How The Adjustment League found its final form, I can’t say - all the surprising paths imagination takes - but I remember clearly how it began. He received his bachelor of music degree from Berklee College of Music, where he is now an assistant professor in the Contemporary Writing and Production department.Hamilton Review of Books: How did you come to write The Adjustment League ? What was the starting point for the novel? He has been featured at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival and the Santa Barbara Jazz Festival. He has performed at the BBC London, the NFL World Bowl IX Halftime Show, the Turn Ben Stein On TV show, and the Today show. Hamilton has appeared and toured with multi-platinum recording artists such as James Brown, Tyrese, Savage Garden, Coolio, Joe, Ronny Jordan, Jonathan Butler, and Phil Perry. While the saxophone is his principal instrument, he also plays keyboards, bass, and drums. His recordings include Heart and Soul with the Winans, Thus Spoke Z with CTI, and the solo albums Natural Attraction and Here Together. He has produced recordings for Interscope, Island Def Jam, and BGP Records. ![]() He was a member of the late night band for the BET television show Live from LA, where he wrote and produced hip-hop pieces for guest artists such as Dr. Mike Hamilton has been producing, writing, recording, and performing music for over twenty years.
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