I cannot take credit for this photo of the Rusty Nail.
The Rusty Nail was a bar in downtown Flint that went out of business in the late 80s. The spot figures prominently in my semi-autobiographical novel, Your Silent Face, and would have to appear in just about anything I ever wrote about Flint and the 80s. It was that place. The place where regular folks went, where the writers and poets and musicians and creatives went, where the pool players went, where the U of M, Flint students hung out, where the underground crowd went. It was where I first got up on stage and read my poetry, at the age of seventeen. It was where I met one of my best friends in life.
I thought that I would share this photo that a buddy shared to my FB wall this morning. I don’t know who took it. It also captures the Capitol Theater down the street, another spot that appears in my novel. Despite everything else, we had a hell of a lot of fun, or something like that, in downtown Flint in the 80s.
Your Silent Face is available at the Apple Book Store (for iphones, tablets and notebooks), Amazon (for Kindle), or this website (for all devices).
Links below.
Fiction
Coming of Age
“The reader will likely be reminded of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity or possibly Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused; Lane’s tale is similarly episodic and digressive and more dedicated to re-creating the feeling of a time and place than telling a cohesive story. Even so, the sharp prose and inviting energy help it to succeed where similar novels fail. Readers will enjoy following Stuart’s thought processes, wherever they lead.” —Kirkus Reviews
What lies ahead that doesn’t suck? Summer break forces Stuart Page to return home and wrestle with his fraying ties to the East Side of Flint, his memory an archive of cassettes he would like to erase. His freshman year of college was lame. More early Cure than Spandau Ballet, he might be overheard saying. More Gary Numan than Falco.
Flustered by visits from a stoic viking, fueled by an endless supply of beer, Stu picks apart an obsession with the lead singer of Joy Division and chugs the sour dregs of insecurity as he drunkenly veers through Flint’s blue collar fight culture, summer hook ups, the aftereffects of Old School Catholicism and Reaganomics in Your Silent Face.
Key words; fiction, coming of age, 80s music, New Wave, Gen X, Rust Belt, Native American, graffiti, urban poetry
Fiction
Coming of Age
“The reader will likely be reminded of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity or possibly Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused; Lane’s tale is similarly episodic and digressive and more dedicated to re-creating the feeling of a time and place than telling a cohesive story. Even so, the sharp prose and inviting energy help it to succeed where similar novels fail. Readers will enjoy following Stuart’s thought processes, wherever they lead.” —Kirkus Reviews
What lies ahead that doesn’t suck? Summer break forces Stuart Page to return home and wrestle with his fraying ties to the East Side of Flint, his memory an archive of cassettes he would like to erase. His freshman year of college was lame. More early Cure than Spandau Ballet, he might be overheard saying. More Gary Numan than Falco.
Flustered by visits from a stoic viking, fueled by an endless supply of beer, Stu picks apart an obsession with the lead singer of Joy Division and chugs the sour dregs of insecurity as he drunkenly veers through Flint’s blue collar fight culture, summer hook ups, the aftereffects of Old School Catholicism and Reaganomics in Your Silent Face.
Key words; fiction, coming of age, 80s music, New Wave, Gen X, Rust Belt, Native American, graffiti, urban poetry