How the Mistakes Were Made: A Novel - Softcover

McMahon, Tyler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312658540 ISBN 13: 9780312658540

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2011

Synopsis

Laura Loss came of age in the hardcore punk scene of the early 1980s. The jailbait bass player in her brother Anthony’s band, she grew up traveling the country, playing her heart out in a tight network of show venues to crowds soaked in blood and sweat. The band became notorious, the stars of a shadow music industry. But when Laura was 18, it all fell apart. Anthony’s own fans destroyed him, something which Laura never forgot.

Ten years later, Laura finds her true fame with the formation of The Mistakes, a gifted rock band that bursts out of ‘90s Seattle to god-like celebrity. When she discovered Nathan and Sean, the two flannel-clad misfits who, along with her, composed the band, she instantly understood that Sean’s synesthesia—a blending of the senses that allows him to “see” the music— infused his playing with an edge that would take them to the top. And it did. But it, along with his love for Laura, would also be their downfall.

At the moment of their greatest fame, the volatile bonds between the three explode in a mushroom cloud of betrayal, deceit, and untimely endings. The world blames Laura for destroying its rock heroes. Hated by the fans she’s spent her life serving, she finally tells her side of the story, the “true” story, of the rise and fall of The Mistakes.

About this title

From the Author

Q&A With Author Tyler McMahon on How the Mistakes Were Made

Q: How the Mistakes Were Made has an incredibly evocative and richly detailed setting: Seattle’s grunge/punk music scene the early 1990’s.  What drew you to this particular time and place?

A: Seattle—especially at this time period—has always cast a long shadow for me. I was 15 or so when Nirvana’s Nevermind was released. As a teenage misfit on the other side of the country, all the Sub-Pop and so-called “grunge” music—as well as the photographs and clever liner notes—fed a certain illusion that there was a place out west filled with people like my friends and me. It was a sort of Utopian vision for sloppy outsiders.

Q: The bands in the novel rise to fame on shoulders of devoted, grass roots fan bases. Why was it important to you that the bands you depict were “made” by their fans? How to do you think the current musical landscape of internet downloads, YouTube videos and self-promotion outside mainstream record labels has changed the notion of “fandom?”

A: My fascination with 80’s hardcore began as a fascination with the material aspects. It still blows my mind that kids with guitars and old vans and primitive recording technology were able to pull off such an end-run around the music industry—especially at that time. I firmly believe that the underground punk scenes of a decade earlier paved the way for grunge, alternative, and indie rock. I wanted to show how marginalized or fringe artistic movements can shift the paradigm of pop culture.

As a teacher, I spend a lot of time with college students, and I’m always interested in how they look at notions of fandom and celebrity. They don’t seem to have the same contempt for commercialism that my generation did. Which isn’t to say they embrace it so much as they’re indifferent to it and less threatened by it.

Q:  How the Mistakes Were Made takes on the difficult subject of self-destruction, especially among those who have achieved immense success very quickly. Why do you think the idea of a celebrity “imploding” or “breaking down” is so compelling to our current popular culture? What does it say about us?

A: As a writer, I’ve always been a little obsessed with self-destruction. I think what most interests me is the way that certain modes of it—like drug abuse—are vilified, while others—like sleep-deprivation, overwork, hunger, unhealthy forms of exercise—seem to be lauded.
In the case of celebrity, I was interested in how we crave explanation for those implosions and breakdowns. In my cursory reading about Kurt Cobain, I couldn’t get over the way that certain heartbroken fans wanted some explanation other than suicide. Some continue to spin complex conspiracy theories about what actually happened to him.

As somebody who has lost friends and relatives to suicide and drug abuse—as well as to mysterious combinations of the two—I’ve always found those alternate explanations disturbing. Our time would be better spent seeking way to address self-destructive behavior, not finding excuses for it.

Q:  Laura’s flashbacks to her childhood are heavily influenced by the Cold War mentality.  Could you describe this mentality – in brief – and then explain how it shapes the characters and events in the novel?

A: Many of my earliest memories involve being terrified by some sort of nuclear apocalypse. I would have nightmares about it all the time. So many childhood sleepovers ended with somebody’s older brother or sister whispering about how the bombs worked—if they used keys or buttons, if the president could launch them from his limo, how big they were and what shape they had.

Laura has such a tough, tomboy exterior. It felt necessary to give her some kind of soft underbelly—especially in the flashback sections. The nuclear anxiety fit the bill—and grounded her more solidly in the time and place. I handed those fears off to her, and was happy to be rid of them.

In a broader sense, I believe the nihilism and apocalyptic visions associated with the Cold War did inform the origins of punk. I say that not as a lynch-pin explanation for the movement, but more as an extreme example of the many good reasons that young people had to feel detached from government, from previous generations, and so on.

Q: In many cases, there seems to be a double standard for what is accepted and reviled for men and women in the public eye – particularly in the celebrity realm.  How does this double standard appear play out in How the Mistakes Were Made?

A: It’s interesting; I did a little research recently on the Femme Fatale characters in Detective novels for a lecture I gave. Throughout the history of literature, women have often been a source of temptation. Many early forms of fiction—the King Arthur stories are a great example—stress the hero’s need to distinguish between “good” women and “bad” women. It’s the polarized, black-and-white aspect that bothers me. Still, I think we look at public female figures this way. Someone like Hilary Clinton is essentially loved or hated—but nothing in between. In my book, I wanted to show that Laura’s shortcomings don’t necessarily mean that she’s two-faced or manipulative, but that she’s a person like the rest of us. Her mistakes are everyone’s mistakes; they just look grotesque under the spotlights.

About the Author

TYLER MCMAHON is the author of the debut novel How the Mistakes Were Made. He studied at the University of Virginia and Boise State University. His short work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Antioch Review, The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, and elsewhere. He lives in Honolulu with his wife, food writer Dabney Gough, and teaches writing at Hawai'i Pacific University.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0312658540
• ISBN 13: 9780312658540
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352