Synopses & Reviews
#8 of 10 Terrific Reads of 2009. "Charles Bukowski will dig the grit in this seedy novel, a poetic rendering of postmodern San Francisco." -O, The Oprah Magazine
A Best Book of the Year -The Nervous Breakdown
"Where Michel Gondry would go if he went down a few too many miles of bad desert road." -The Collagist
"Mohr's prose roams with chimerical liquidity. The magic of this book is a disturbing, hallucinogenic magic." -Boston's Weekly Dig
Following a 30-year-old man named Rhonda suffering from depersonalization, Some Things That Meant the World to Me is a gritty and beautiful work that is creative and hypnotic, and should stand as an introduction of an original new voice to American literature.
When Rhonda was a child abandoned and ignored by his mother; abused and misguided by his mother's boyfriend he imagined the rooms of his home drifting apart from one another like separating continents. Years later, after an embarassing episode as an adult, Rhonda's inner-child appears, leading him to a trapdoor in the bottom of a dumpster behind a taqueria that will force him to finally confront his troubled past.
In the spirit of Cruddy and Hairstyles of the Damned, Joshua Mohr has created a remarkable and unforgettable character in this charmingly poetic and maturely crafted first novel.
Joshua Mohr has been published in Other Voices, The Cimarron Review, Pleiades, and Gulf Coast, among others. He lives in San Francisco and teaches at a halfway house.
Review
"Joshua Mohr's scorching, jacked-up prose nearly burned my eyes out; and his main character, a young man known as Rhonda, is one of the most troubled and heartbreaking people you will ever encounter in literature." Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff
Review
"This bold new writer has an uncanny gift for tapping our most dangerous desires. Open the trapdoor at the bottom of the dumpster and prepare yourself to enter a wonderland where violence may pave your path to strange love and potent healing." Melanie Rae Thon, author of Sweet Hearts
Review
"What Joshua Mohr is doing has more in common with Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Haruki Murakami, all great chroniclers of the fantastic. He's interested in something weirder than mere sex, drugs, and degradation." Joshua Furst, The Rumpus
Review
"In his first novel, Joshua Mohr nearly accomplishes a masterpiece." Grade: A Campus Circle
Review
"A startling debut. Joshua Mohr takes us to a different city, but a city we know, populated by the dark side of ourselves." Stephen Elliott
Review
"Mohr's prose roams with chimerical liquidity. The magic of this book is a disturbing, hallucinogenic magic, one that will jostle you back and forth..." Boston's Weekly Dig
Review
Joshua Mohr's debut novel is that rare literary gem: the kind of story that envelops you so wholly, you forget that you're reading. The kind of book you want to lend to everyone you know -- except that you can't bear to part with it. I haven't felt this enamored of a book since I first encountered Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son more than a decade ago, and that is one of my "desert island" books....
Sheila Ashdown, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopsis
Enter Damascus, the womb-like bar in San Francisco's Mission District, and you'll find Rhonda, a thirty-year-old man suffering from depersonalization — a disorder allowing him to reconfigure his reality to tolerate trauma. When Rhonda was young he imagined the rooms of his house drifting apart like separating continents as he raced to avoid his mother's abusive boyfriend while trying to make sense of her extended disappearances.
The next stool over is Vern, a diaper-clad Vet nursing warm beers, who wishes for nothing more than the opportunity to re-break Rhonda's arm.
Beside Vern, Old Lady Rhonda, a neglected housewife who excels at Wheel of Fortune.
Some Things That Meant the World to Me is the gritty tale of a band of outcasts struggling to make sense of their broken pasts in this subtly affecting, achingly poignant, and mature debut novel.
"I'd like to brag about the night I saved a hooker's life. Like to tell you how quiet everything else in the world was while I helped her. This was in San Francisco. Late 2007. I'd been drinking in Damascus, my favorite dive bar, which was painted entirely black — floor, walls, and ceiling. Being surrounded by all that darkness had this slowing effect on time, like a shunned astronaut meandering in space."
Synopsis
Following a 30-year-old man named Rhonda suffering from depersonalization,
Some Things That Meant the World to Me is a gritty and beautiful work that is creative and hypnotic, and should stand as an introduction of an original new voice to American literature.
When Rhonda was a child — abandoned and ignored by his mother; abused and misguided by his mother's boyfriend — he imagined the rooms of his home drifting apart from one another like separating continents. Years later, after an embarrassing episode as an adult, Rhonda's inner-child appears, leading him to a trapdoor in the bottom of a dumpster behind a taqueria that will force him to finally confront his troubled past.
In the spirit of Cruddy and Hairstyles of the Damned, Joshua Mohr has created a remarkable and unforgettable character in this charmingly poetic and maturely crafted first novel.
Synopsis
An imaginative, gritty tale that introduces a fresh new voice in American literature.
About the Author
Joshua Mohr has been published in Other Voices, The Cimarron Review, Pleiades, and Gulf Coast, among others. He sings in the band Damn Handsome and The Birthday Suits. He lives in San Francisco and teaches at a halfway house. His second novel, From a Fragile Galaxy, is forthcoming from Two Dollar Radio in June 2010.