Fiction, Philosophy, and a Modern Mythology
Indy Perro
Books aren't our vegetables. As much as I love to read and believe in the power of a good book, I don't think literature makes us better people. Reading and thinking might, but literature can only do as much as we, the readers and writers, do with language. The best books provide a point of contact for consciousnesses, a place to question social and cultural assumptions, and a testing ground for ideas.
Who am I?
Perhaps the worst person to answer this question, but if pressed…
I’m a novelist, an independent thinker, and a recovering academic. I’ve a degree in history, graduate degrees in religious studies, comparative literature, and education, and I spent more than a decade teaching philosophy, religious studies, writing, and literature. In my free time, I enjoy reading, hiking, studying languages, attending concerts of all kinds, and exploring nature, architecture, and museums. If you want to connect, I don’t do small talk, but I can lean back and discuss for hours.
Who am I?
Perhaps the worst person to answer this question, but if pressed…
I’m a novelist, an independent thinker, and a recovering academic. I’ve a degree in history, graduate degrees in religious studies, comparative literature, and education, and I spent more than a decade teaching philosophy, religious studies, writing, and literature. In my free time, I enjoy reading, hiking, studying languages, attending concerts of all kinds, and exploring nature, architecture, and museums. If you want to connect, I don’t do small talk, but I can lean back and discuss for hours.
Speaking of Non-Sequiturs
Since we were already off topic, I thought I’d share a few random thoughts, inspirations, ideas, conjectures, possibilities, propositions, and preferences. In Speaking of Non-Sequiturs, I engage the ideas that drive my work without the frame of fiction. These non-sequiturs, as you’d imagine, don’t follow a specific pattern, form, or context. Some are ideas taken from an engaging philosophical work. Others reference novels or stories worth reading. A few string an idea through multiple works or explore an idea born of abstraction, a non-linguistic experience such as music, nature, or culture. I’m working without a net, and I invite you to join me.
Perro's Prism
My writing craft has parallel, complimentary sides: non-fiction and fiction. You can find my non-fiction in Speaking of Non-Sequiturs and my fiction at Centralcitybooks.com. In Perro’s Prism, I use a different theme each month to explore the connections between these two sides of my project.
If you enjoy Perro’s Prism, please subscribe for the full experience. You’ll receive my newsletter delivered directly to your inbox along with the occasional update about my work.
If you enjoy Perro’s Prism, please subscribe for the full experience. You’ll receive my newsletter delivered directly to your inbox along with the occasional update about my work.
Visit Central City
Centralcitybooks.com is dedicated to Central City, the fictional cityscape that serves as a setting for my novels. In the Kane and Bayonne novels, we see a traditional noir landscape with a seedy underworld, corruption, poverty, and violence, but Central City hadn’t always hit the skids. Like the midwestern metropolitan areas on which it was based, Central City has enjoyed its ups and downs. Industry boomed, busted, and rusted. Crime rates rose, fell, and rose again. Life goes on, and the people of Central City search for meaning like the rest of us, in the world outside their front doors.
Visit Central City and explore how times changed. Discover the taverns, brothels, junk houses, and cop shops. Learn more about the characters, and discover the history and new adventures of your favorite anti-heroes and villains.
Visit Central City and explore how times changed. Discover the taverns, brothels, junk houses, and cop shops. Learn more about the characters, and discover the history and new adventures of your favorite anti-heroes and villains.
Central City Books
Explore the world of Central City through the adventures of Kane Kulpa, Vincent Bayonne, and all the cops, criminals, heroes, and villains who call the city home. In Central City, nothing is as simple as it appears. Some criminals live by a code, and others justify their worst impulses. Some cops are weak, and others push their biases no matter the outcome. We live in a world built on commercial expectations. Central City is a world built on harsh realities that deny what we think we know.
Perro's Prism
Technology and Identity
Technology isn’t a problem; it’s neither good nor bad, neither here nor there. The problem is that we come to technology with certain expectations, beliefs
Speaking of non-sequiturs
Rock and Roll, Mass Media, and American Self-Absorption
Between 1954 and 1958, Rock and Roll ignited the American psyche. Born of a combination of rockabilly, blues, jazz, country, and doowop, Rock and Roll
Perro's Prism
The Outlaw Myth
The myth of the outlaw stretches back to ancient times, Odysseus travelled beyond the boundaries of society. He defied various gods, and descended into the