…The list consisted of seven things which were eating away at my father, Walter O’Shea Jr., like dry rot; seven tasks or gestures that needed to be undertaken before he found himself supine on the icy slab at the mortuary. Death wasn’t something he’d talk about; he’d never even considered drawing up a will. But it wasn’t as if he didn’t know that death was lurking around the corner like a recidivist lying in wait for yet another vulnerable pensioner. It wasn’t a faraway destination like it had once been—a place on the map that he had never considered visiting; he knew he was closer to the damp soil than to the warmth of the womb.

…The casement windows of the loft opened out over the courtyard. I sat by one, looking at the quiet scene below lit by the moonlight as a gentle nighttime breeze blanketed my skin. I kissed the rim of a Berliner bottle, sucking a mouthful of its contents. Through the opened window of one of the apartments below I could hear a couple making love. The glow from my phone illuminated my face as I opened it and tried to call Mia. After two rings, she declined the call.
I checked an unread message from Paul.
He said, Did you go to a gangbang club yet? YOU NEED TO FUCK HER OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM.
I didn’t reply.
A few minutes later Ruby messaged me: Paul said you’re sick. You really need to let me know, Riley. I hope you’re okay. It’s been a bit of a shitshow in the office today. I’ll fill you in when you’re back online.
I replied, What if I don’t come back?
Ruby instantly sent a response: Are you serious?
I’m on a lot of painkillers, I texted.
You’ve seemed a little off, she said.
I hate my job, I said.
Ruby replied, I’m not sure that’s something you should say to your manager.
I’m a corporate whore, I typed.
Get some sleep, she said.
I was supposed to be a fine artist, I replied.
A few minutes later I texted, U there?“

The late Ray Bradbury warned his fellow writers to refrain from indulging in that problematic act of thinking: “Don’t think,” he said, “thinking is the enemy of creativity.” Anyone who writes novels, or screenplays, or poetry, or short fiction, will know precisely what he means. Thinking gets in the way of the creative process; it’s only after you’ve allowed the story to flow organically from the depths within that you should start to think about what you’ve written. Thinking is for the editing process, not those moments when you’re in front of the blank page and its flashing cursor who’s always egging you on like a mischievous friend.

   When I wrote the first words of Instagraphia, I was following Bradbury’s advice: I wasn’t thinking. Bianca Ford, the protagonist of the story, bullied her way through the crowd to announce her arrival at the party: “The cultivation of persona is an art,” she declared, as I stared at the vast expanse of white on the screen in front of me that was now being populated by a few dozen black letters; new arrivals on uninhabited land. Those declaratory words that were typed survived the rewriting and editing process; they open the novel now as they did before it had been written.

   Of course, I was thinking in the periods between writing, and before I began work on this novel. I knew I wanted to write a satirical piece of long fiction. Some of my favorite novels are great satires; some of my favorite writers were great satirists. Gore Vidal’s laugh-out-loud comedic efforts Myra Breckinridge, Kalki, and Duluth thrilled me most in the world of fiction. The latter especially was so outrageous that I’m certain it would struggle to find a mainstream publisher today.

   Which brings us to the nature of Instagraphia.

   I’m certain I’m not alone when I say we’re living in an odd time in history. Maybe things have always been strange, and the advent of the internet has simply shown us the bizarreness of the world; the mask of sanity removed, like the revelation of a serial killer. The world has certainly been a messed-up place throughout history, indeed. But for those of us in the West, we’ve found ourselves in the midst of the post-modern present, where online culture schizophrenicizes offline behavior, where once-reliable truths have been turned on their heads, where political correctness has returned with a vengeance to suffocate and stifle creativity – much more than thinking does. Many of us have been left somewhat dazed by all of this, stumbling through our days like the shocked individual climbing out of a car wreck.

   Not Bianca Ford.

   In the long arc of history, Bianca Ford represents a nascent phenomenon: The Influencer. Bianca isn’t dazed by the dizzying present because she has set her sights on the alluring future: her quest for status. That means Bianca will embrace the dominant culture in all its forms; she will be a champion of whatever is trending; she will ride the wave of the latest movement to bring about her online growth and offline fame. In her quest for greater brand recognition and influence, she has set her sights on the upcoming Annual Influencer Awards and tech billionaire Curtis Greene. But in today’s perilous climate, all it takes is a single gaffe to send years of “cultivation” tumbling down.

   Instagraphia satirizes everything from social media to celebrity culture, political correctness to contemporary art; it’s a story that’s an exaggeration of reality, but which certainly has something to say about the world in which we in The West find ourselves. As Italian-American academic and social critic Camille Paglia said: “Art is something out of the ordinary commenting on the ordinary.”

   I have stepped outside the ordinary to comment on the ordinary (as extraordinary as the present may seem). But you could say it’s just a single step: one foot is out the door, the other firmly on the ground inside. Some writers, like Bret Easton Ellis, say stories should be windows, not mirrors. I agree. Instagraphia is certainly opening a window, inviting the reader into this world where Bianca Ford and her fame- and power-hungry friends march towards success, whatever the cost. But this window is a paned one; readers may catch a reflection as they pass through.

   My intention with Instagraphia – what I was thinking about when I wasn’t in the middle of writing it – was essentially to make people laugh. To poke fun at how silly we can be; how absurd the present is in many ways; how movements sprung from good intentions can be hijacked by people and organizations with bad ones. But I was also intent on capturing something about that desire for status, the hunger for power that lurks within all of us. We can all succumb to it to varying degrees. Some of us will stop at nothing to feed our rumbling bellies with the status and fortune and power we crave. Some of us will even stuff ourselves until we throw up.

   Very often, it’s others who must clean up the mess.

get your copy of Instagraphia here.