Goodreads is hosting a giveaway for signed copies of Californium right now through 
December 15.
Tell it to your snotty literati friends (I’m stealing that term from Jennifer Spiegel) . Yell it at your irritatingly cool punk/music friends. Or, just enter yourself and then re-gift the book over the holidays (because you already own it, right?).
Oh, and when you stop by Californium at Goodreads, bring some stars with you. They’re always much appreciated.
Fernando Pessoa never visited the United States, so he never made it to California. At least, not physically. A writer so ahead of his time — post-modernist before there was post-modernism — he surely would have found a novel set in a time and place beyond his own experience attractive. He would have laughed at early eighties So Cal culture (as we all should); he would have delighted in characters who are trying to understand their place in the universe (even if that universe is high school); and he definitely would have liked punk rock (in principle, and maybe in practice as well). And if nothing else, he’d have been intrigued by the cover. It’s a pretty cool cover.
Long before I had a book deal or even an agent for my first novel, Californium, back when it was just a manuscript, I knew, well I believed, it was a book somebody would want some day. So, even then I’d think about that day Californium would be published, and where I’d be.
Today, July 19, 2016, is that day. Am I giving a reading at some bookstore in New York City? That always seemed like the right thing to do even if in all my trips to New York bookstores (two), I’d never caught a reading. But no, that’s not the plan.
Will I be at a launch party tonight in Hollywood, perhaps at the World Famous Whisky a Go Go (it shows up in the novel) where a lot of old So Cal friends, and a So Cal punk band or two, maybe Social Distortion or The Offspring, will play? Nope.
Perhaps I’m giving a reading somewhere near the university where I teach, maybe the public library or the local arts council, something low key, but nice, and still a celebration? Not that either.
Where am I on this day, that day, the day I’ve long dreamed about? Lisbon. No, my novel has nothing to 
do with Portugal, or Europe, or anything historical beyond the early eighties punk scene set down amidst California’s growing military industrial complex (in a funny way, I promise). This is the third week of a teaching assignment with Disquiet International and Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Res MFA program. I committed to it before the pub date was set.
I’m not complaining. A little over a week ago, I got to read from Californium at Livraria Ferin, a landmark bookstore in Lisbon where, should you choose, you can read from Fernando Pessoa’s desk (it’s tall like a podium because, apparently, he liked to write standing up). I had the honor of reading with David Caplan and Frank X. Gaspar. And 
over these past few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of attending so many other great readings around this historic city—Padgett Powell, Molly Antopol, Maaza Mengiste, John Herrin, Mikhail Iossel, Chanan Tigay, Annie Liontas, Arthur Flowers, Sabina Murray, Afonso Cruz, and National Book Award Winner, Denis Johnson (who I am blatantly name-dropping here because he came to my reading too and laughed at all the right places, which may be the most authentic kind of positive review I could ever hope for).
The post-launch readings and book signings will be waiting for me back in the States, and I’m excited for them all. But for now, on this day, to be in Pessoa’s city; to daily walk by Bertrand Chiado, the oldest bookstore in the world; to be among all these writers whose work reminds me of why I do this in the first place; it all seems more than appropriate. Maybe it should have been the plan all along.
It’s pub day, I’m in Portugal, and other than really looking forward to getting home to my wife and kids in a few days, I couldn’t be more thankful.
You know how you sometimes hear those apocryphal stories about writers and writing: Ernest Hemingway’s wife leaving his entire manuscript on a train; Sherwood Anderson writing the bulk of Winesburg, Ohio, in the middle of the night and naked; Alice McDermott basing an uncompleted novel on one of my short stories? Some are completely false (like the thing about Alice McDermott; I just really like her). But some are based in fact and a few of those happen to be completely true.
Here’s one I know is true: The very last line of my novel, Californium, is not the line with which I originally intended to end the book. I was struggling with exactly how to word that line and my editor at Plume solved my dilemma by striking it completely and ending on the penultimate line. I didn’t know things like that actually happened, and I wasn’t sure my editor was wrong to do it, so I got a second opinion from my other editor at Plume, and then my agent, and all agreed that the second-to-last line was the better line and the very last line should go. At this point, it was hard to argue with people who had taken such care with my manuscript and, frankly, helped me make it a much better book than I ever could have written completely on my own, so I agreed and the last line was lost to history. Well, almost. I still have it saved on a draft of the novel.
I’m never going to sneak into bookstores and pencil in that last line so people will know what it was. BUT, I am willing to reveal it to anyone who reads Californium, who cares to know, and (here comes the marketing pitch) who has bought Californium by July 31, 2016. (I know, to completely lose my soul I just need to add that operators are standing by and if you’re not completely satisfied you can send the book back at no cost and keep the steak knives as my gift to you). But, it would be kind of cool to know, wouldn’t it? Sort of a director’s cut of the book?
If you’re interested, I promise I won’t send the last line and spoil everything until after you’ve read the book. So if you think you’ll want to know, all you have to do is this:
That’s it. You’ll help preserve a very minor part of literary history, and you’ll be able to say, “Thank God that guy had good editors” Or will you? Maybe my instincts were right at first. Decide for yourself, then feel free to email me exactly what you think.
I’m giving a “two weeks before it’s released” reading of CALIFORNIUM, which really isn’t a thing. The thing is that I’m reading with David Caplan and Frank X. Gaspar. The other thing is that the reading will be at Livraria Ferin, a bookstore in the Baixa-Chiado neighborhood of Lisbon. So, two things. Super cool things.
Big thanks to Jeff Parker of Disquiet International for setting this up and letting me read with two great authors.
My first novel, Californium: a novel of punk rock, growing up, and other dangerous things (Plume-Penguin), won’t be out until July 19. But not only is it on pre-sale right now, it’s also on sale-sale (like 5 bucks off at all the online book sellers). 
So if you’re thinking about how to look cool on the beach this summer, well, there are a lot of better ways to do it, but having a copy of Californium that you didn’t have to pay full price for won’t hurt. You’ll look smart . You’ll be smart. And everyone knows smart is the new cool. Kind of.
So, this happened:
My, understands-my-novel-even-better-than-I-do, agent, Mackenzine Brady at New Leaf Literary, sold my novel to Plume – Penguin Books (USA).
There are edits and copy-edits and other things to come, but it will all add up to CALIFORNIUM sliding on to a bookstore shelf not too far from you (almost anywhere you are, they tell me) in May, 2016.
Feeling so very, very thankful.
R Dean Johnson 