Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-9854930-1-1
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-9854930-2-8
Kindle
ISBN: 978-0-9854930-3-5
Nook
ISBN: 978-0-9854930-4-2
iPad
ISBN: 978-0-9854930-5-9
These editions no longer available
About the Book
When it comes to painting beautiful landscapes of Northern California, Henry Griffin is anything but a hack. But when it comes to everything else, he’s a hopeless bumbler, hanging out with a shell-shocked vet who is unwilling or unable to speak (or bathe), volunteering at the local immigrant community center in exchange for tequila and empanadas, and mooning over a woman he hasn’t seen in twenty years, except in dreams, where she appears as a heavenly image of beauty and light. When she shows up for real at the California Heritage Gallery as the trophy wife of a rich and famous rock star turned multimedia impresario, Henry is overwhelmed with desire… and despair. In a state of love struck dementia, he hatches an outlandish scheme to win her back: he’ll fake his own death, thereby driving up the value of his portfolio. Hiding out, he’ll then continue to produce “undiscovered” work, get rich, and one day return to claim his true love, when they’ll ride “Fat Boys” together into the sunset to live happily ever after.
Even a loser can catch a break once in a while.
About the Author
It was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1977, when an English professor pulled Jeb Harrison aside after class one day and said “Jeb, whatever you do, just keep writing.” So he did. After a long career of writing everything from commercials to eulogies to commercial interactive CD-ROMs, while at the same time playing music in sleazy dives and concert halls, as well as painting hundreds of canvasses of his beautiful Marin County, California home, Jeb lays the foundation for a new chapter of his creativity with his debut novel, Hack. Learn more about Jeb at: http://www.jebharrison.com/
Praise for HACK
“’Perception is more important than reality’ is one of the oldest, unspoken, governing truths of Hollywood. In HACK, Jeb Harrison reveals how this rule also applies to the art world and its painters, agents, and collectors, with comic and bittersweet results. Harrison creates a topsy-turvy carousel of disguises, mistaken identities, lies, half-truths, misunderstood motivations, and perhaps even a fable (in the form of a quasi-mythic homeless man) then sets it spinning until it ensnares all of the characters who inhabit the Bay Area’s “see-or-be-seen art scene” – from bisexual ex-wives and Marin County divorcees to gay Scottish make-up artists and a rich music video producer and his ex-WWF bodyguard: Harrison gives each of these characters enough credibility to convey that he’s obviously met and known their real counterparts in his life, with an equal amount of hyperbole that makes them both funny and sad, often at the same time. Reading HACK is like a weekend getaway in Marin County: a very enjoyable way to spend your time.”
— Golden Globe nominee Stan Chervin, screenwriter of Moneyball
“Jeb’s writing is not unlike his signature sound on the bass guitar; under the melodic surface is a rhythmic, soulful groove, with enough space for the almost improvised narrative to breathe and ultimately tell itself with simplicity, energy and Jeb’s trademark twisted humor. Jeb also writes like he paints, creating beautiful pictures that have their own subtle spirit and direction. Jeb writes a quintessentially male story here, but inserts a couple of strong, independent, intelligent female characters into his protagonist’s life to keep him honest and, of course, ultimately save his sorry a**. Jeb’s creativity seeps into everything he does, but this may be a pinnacle; he is one heck of a story teller. Read it!”
— Bonnie Hayes, award-winner singer/songwriter, producer and performer.
“I laughed my ass off, and then at times stopped and felt a sadness, almost like I was actually Henry Griffin, haunted by the ghost of a childhood girlfriend, left wondering how perfect life could have been… I can’t stop thinking about the book, and that’s the only real compliment one writer can give another.”
— Frank Turner Hollon, author of Life Is a Strange Place, adapted as the motion picture Barry Munday.