Launch
Party Schedule:
January 20th
Monday
Dream
Cast & This or That Why I Can’t
Stop Reading
January 21st
Tuesday
Review
& Spotlight Writer Person
January 22nd
Wednesday
7
Favorite Books Read this Year & Spotlight Nyxx’s
Nook
January 23rd
Thursday
Review
& Tens List Deal Sharing Aunt
Music
Playlist & Spotlight Rose’s Book
Corner
January 24th
Friday
Interview
& Spotlight Kelly P’s Blog
January 25th
Saturday
Review
& Spotlight Sabrina’s Paranormal Palace
January 26th
Sunday
5 Random Things &
Spotlight TTC Books and More
Synopsis
The interlocking
stories of a typical community and the lives and drams of the untypical people
who live there. Lawnville, where murders have broken hearts, mailmen and bus drivers
are locked in a secret feud, loving husbands betray their wives, bullies rule
the local school, dogs yearn to be free, justice happens despite the police,
and a beautiful but ruthless nymphomaniac destroys the lives of the men who
love her.
You can purchase KABOOM at the following Retailers:
About the Author
About the Author
George
Cunningham comes from a long line of story tellers and prevaricators.
Sitting around the living room on Sunday nights, drinking Coca Cola out of the bottle,
listening to his grandfather pass down stories to his sons and their families,
hearing his father and uncles tell their own stories, each one trying to top
the other, and learning as a kid how to take the humor and bitter-sweet tragedy
of life and weave it into a good tale.
George
grew up on the West Coast of Florida, where he spent many happy hours dipping
his toes into the warm waters of Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. He was
a late bloomer who didn’t graduate from University of Florida until he was
29. As a young man, he worked as a survey crew chief, a civil engineering
aide, a short-order cook, a painter, a laborer, a construction inspector, a
gardener and a seltzer bottle washer. After graduation he worked as an editor,
a copy editor, a layout man, a columnist, a police reporter, a business
reporter, and a feature writer. He served three years in the U.S. Army,
including a year in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
George
came to California in 1969 and immediately fell in love with the state.
He worked at the South Bay Daily Breeze, City News Service, the Orange County
Register, and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
He is
the former editor and publisher of The Cunningham Report, an electronic
newsletter on West Coast ports that he and his wife Carmela founded in 1995 and
ran for 15 years before closing operations in December 2010. They have now
founded a new venture, Reader Publishing Group, which will represent and
publish books by a select group of authors, including themselves.
George
is a writer because he has to be. There are new stories to tell, new ways
to tell them and new people to tell them too. He plans to write until he
dies.
He has
published two novels – The Big Story and Kaboom.
The Big
Story, set in the early 1970s, is about a reporter who is chasing a story that
the police, the mob, and his own editors want to kill. Kaboom is a darkly
humorous look at the quirky community of Lawnville and the ripples that extend
throughout that community following a brutal murder. Both The Big Story (link
to Big Story page) and Kaboom (link to Kaboom page) are available in printed
and digital form.
George
and his wife Carmela are currently writing a book on the history of the Port of
Long Beach. Look for it in 2015.
How, when and why did you first start writing?
I used to do little boy novels about dogs and creeks and alligators that hid in the water when I was a little boy to make my mom laugh. I remember writing in one story about a dog tiptoeing across a back yard and mom thought that the image of a dog trying to tiptoe was hysterical. I was funny without meaning to be, but I like it. Then I gave it up to pursue more exciting goals – being a test pilot, being a spy, being a hobo riding around on freight trains. None of that actually worked out, so instead I went to college, dropped out, worked construction, went back, dropped out, spent three years in the Army, went back, finally graduated, and ended up working as a newspaper reporter when I was 29 years old. I found out I loved writing, and newspapers are a great place to hone your trade, but you are somewhat constrained by the facts. And by editors – who are necessary, but who often get their jobs because of their lack of spine.
Interview:
How, when and why did you first start writing?
I used to do little boy novels about dogs and creeks and alligators that hid in the water when I was a little boy to make my mom laugh. I remember writing in one story about a dog tiptoeing across a back yard and mom thought that the image of a dog trying to tiptoe was hysterical. I was funny without meaning to be, but I like it. Then I gave it up to pursue more exciting goals – being a test pilot, being a spy, being a hobo riding around on freight trains. None of that actually worked out, so instead I went to college, dropped out, worked construction, went back, dropped out, spent three years in the Army, went back, finally graduated, and ended up working as a newspaper reporter when I was 29 years old. I found out I loved writing, and newspapers are a great place to hone your trade, but you are somewhat constrained by the facts. And by editors – who are necessary, but who often get their jobs because of their lack of spine.
What is the best book
that you've read recently?
Wow, that’s a tough one. I read a lot of different kinds of books. Sometimes it’s the last one I read, which in this case would be Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel The Killing Floor. Child was greatly inspired in his craft by John C. McDonald, who wrote the Travis McGee novels, and you can see the same formula at work here. I was a huge fan of McDonalds, and it’s easy to see the parallels. Travis McGee was a single guy, lived on a houseboat, was a tough guy with a good heart. Jack Reacher is a drifter, a former military guy who just wants to live free, a tough guy with a good heart. Travis would always meet a girl, fall in love, and then at the end go his separate way. Reacher seems to be caught in the same dynamic. She wants to settle down, have kids, and be part of a community. Reacher needs to travel on. These are fantasy stories for married men, who love their wives but secretly wonder what it would be like to live free.
Wow, that’s a tough one. I read a lot of different kinds of books. Sometimes it’s the last one I read, which in this case would be Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel The Killing Floor. Child was greatly inspired in his craft by John C. McDonald, who wrote the Travis McGee novels, and you can see the same formula at work here. I was a huge fan of McDonalds, and it’s easy to see the parallels. Travis McGee was a single guy, lived on a houseboat, was a tough guy with a good heart. Jack Reacher is a drifter, a former military guy who just wants to live free, a tough guy with a good heart. Travis would always meet a girl, fall in love, and then at the end go his separate way. Reacher seems to be caught in the same dynamic. She wants to settle down, have kids, and be part of a community. Reacher needs to travel on. These are fantasy stories for married men, who love their wives but secretly wonder what it would be like to live free.
Who is your favorite
author and why?
Elmore Leonard, John C. McDonald, Walter Mosely, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane – I think the thriller mystery novels are too easily dismissed as not serious literature. But I also am a fan of authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, and David McCullough. My favorite depends on what mood I am in. Pick one? At this point in time it may be Mr. Leonard, because he is gone, because I will miss him, and because he knew how to tell a story in a way that keeps you up late at night when you really need to go to bed.
Elmore Leonard, John C. McDonald, Walter Mosely, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane – I think the thriller mystery novels are too easily dismissed as not serious literature. But I also am a fan of authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, and David McCullough. My favorite depends on what mood I am in. Pick one? At this point in time it may be Mr. Leonard, because he is gone, because I will miss him, and because he knew how to tell a story in a way that keeps you up late at night when you really need to go to bed.
What do you do in your
free time?
I have little free time. When I do, I like to drive, to watch the road unfold before me, to see the desert turn from sand to scrub to mountain pines as I drive. I don’t listen to books on tape or mindless music on the radio. I like the sound of the tires rolling on the asphalt, the white noise of the engine straining up hills, the sun and snow and wind and hail as you proceed on your journey. That to me is bliss.
I have little free time. When I do, I like to drive, to watch the road unfold before me, to see the desert turn from sand to scrub to mountain pines as I drive. I don’t listen to books on tape or mindless music on the radio. I like the sound of the tires rolling on the asphalt, the white noise of the engine straining up hills, the sun and snow and wind and hail as you proceed on your journey. That to me is bliss.
What is your favorite
Quote?
“You live, you get in
trouble, you die.” I don’t know who said it, but I think it sums up things
quite nicely.
What is one book
everyone should read?
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. It has suspense, colorful characters, and it sustains one’s interest from beginning to end.
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. It has suspense, colorful characters, and it sustains one’s interest from beginning to end.
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