Thomas Wictor

RSS Feed

Blog

A note for those who lead double lives

My next novel is about double lives. One double life in particular. As I’ve said before, I made it all up. Not a single aspect of it is true. Being a novel, it’s entirely fictional. Recently someone wrote the following about my novel Chasing the Last Whale. For anyone interested…I’m half-way through Chasing the Last…

 

Read More

Remembering a protector

Currently I’m doing research for my next novel, constructing a life that never was. Or may have been. Who knows? Part of the novel I’m going to write takes place in Tyler, Texas, where I lived from 1972 to 1975. Even so, everything in the book is false. I made it all up. It’s just…

 

Read More

Count me out of your brave new world

A happy British oncologist says that expensive cancer drugs should be withheld from the elderly and given to the young. Dr. Karol Sikora (pronounced “sick aura”) is worried about the costs. Well, count me out of the you-live, you-die lottery. If it comes down to “justifying expenses,” as the doctor says, then I’ll cheerfully give…

 

Read More

The student has surpassed the teacher

When I hired Mike Albee, Lura Dold, and later Becca Pilkington, I was still stuck in 2003, Internet-wise. It was July of 2013; I had no clue about social media. After my parents died, and I discovered that Mike, Lura, and Becca were con artists, I sent my story to every book section of every…

 

Read More

Predators beware. Someone’s got my back

Doing research for my next novel, I discovered something: A lot of the people who made my life miserable have come to horrific ends. Predators beware. In 1972 my family moved to Tyler, Texas. Though I’d been bullied in Venezuela, what Texans did to me was so brutal it was like satire. My siblings and…

 

Read More

New rules of engagement

What made the suicides of my parents so painful was that Mom and Dad kept assuring us that they wanted to live. They said one thing and did the opposite. I’ve dealt with people like that my whole life, but I was nearly killed by my mother and father reaching out to us and pushing…

 

Read More

Junk science to make you hate yourself

Mother Jones is out with an article titled “The Science of Your Racist Brain,” by Indre Viskontas (not Indrid Cold) and Chris Mooney. It’s absolutely hilarious. More junk science to make you hate yourself for being irredeemably evil. The article initially differentiates between “explicit racists” like Donald Sterling and “implicit racists”—all white people. According to…

 

Read More

Dad’s deathmobile

When my nephew Hunter James Gonzales turned three, my father gave him the most dangerous birthday present I’ve ever seen. Dad’s deathmobile was used only once, almost twenty years ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday. A hot needle would would burn out the memory. Free e-books to anyone who does the…

 

Read More

Are you willing to kill to get the girls back?

On April 14, 2014, the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School. When Nigerian soldiers left the village of Gamboru Ngala to search for the girls, Boko Haram attacked and murdered more than 300. They had armored personnel carriers, rocket-propelled grenades, and explosives. It was an orgy of…

 

Read More

Who is the audience?

Alanis Morissette has recorded “Today” for independent congressional candidate Marianne Williamson. Who is the audience? Have you ever heard more loathsome tripe in your life? It’s fitting, since Williamson is a cheesy self-help entrepreneur who knows nothing about politics. Given that she’s not a politician, this isn’t a political post. It’s a post about rampant…

 

Read More