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With all of the literary references and quotes throughout the book, what was your process for deciding which books/authors to include and to what level?

When I turned in one of the final drafts of the book (I think it was draft 11 of 12), it was absolutely jammed with quotes and references. Every single section had its own epigraph. I wanted to write this book in the voice of “Geoff from Thursday” — not in my own voice as a writer of fiction but in a recognizable register for people who’ve heard Thursday and, for the uninitiated, I wanted Geoff’s voice to be almost painfully maximal, especially when he was high. But my editor, the brilliant Chelsea Hodson, pointed out that this maximal voice was getting truly distracting. We pulled a majority of the quotes. The ones we left in were almost all related to the concept of internal space versus external space. This concept of emotional architecture was a key to the middle section of the book (Inferno) and those quotes and references were vital to set that section up.

Is there a reason you chose Dante’s The Divine Comedy specifically as the classic to frame this story around? Were there any other stories or classics you considered?

I wanted to avoid the more impressionistic aspects of memoir writing, so I was attracted to the strict order that The Divine Comedy provided: three books, further subdivided by three. I knew from the start that I didn’t want a traditional hero’s journey but Don Quixote also appealed to my sense of humor, which I think is quite a big part of Someone Who Isn’t Me. Not that it’s a funny book, per se, but I wanted the reader to have the sense that there’s a sad and scary joke being told just below the level of dialogue and plot.

What kind of impact do you like to leave with when you finish the last page of a written work?

I love endings that produce a note of longing, something reaching out past the last word. When the main thread of a work ties up and the author casually glides towards a resting place, I need a wrinkle to come in and make me feel unsure of the character’s mindset.

What type of impact did you want to leave people when they finished this book?

The character undergoes a major life change by the end of the book. I wanted the reader to understand that even with a major life change, the character was still fundamentally driven by the same desires as he was in the beginning of the book. He’s still a dreamer, he still seeks the sublime... and he still may be a danger to himself.

Did writing this work bring you a sense of catharsis? If it did, tell us a little about that process.

In writing this book, I had to relive certain dark aspects of my own character. In order for it to be any good, I knew I had to come to a dispassionate place with regards to good and bad aspects of the character. That was extremely helpful. A kind of exposure therapy.

Did you intend or hope that this book would be so widely relatable, and helpful, even to people who haven’t struggled with addiction?

Mostly, I wanted people to enjoy it. I think the therapeutic qualities of art are wholly a product of how beautifully the art is constructed. Something done well, with passion and dedication to craft, is inspiring to me. I don’t necessarily believe in nutritious artwork. But, of course, it touches me deeply that people have found the book relatable and helpful. I tried to heed Hanif Abdurraqib’s simple advice, which I read somewhere: just don’t fucking lie. If I could stay true, I had faith that the book would be something worth reading, even for a small audience.

You reference a lot of musical and written works in a very fluid and narrative way. What do you feel are the similarities and differences in regards to creating in musical and written forms?

With setting lyrics to music, you have an element to play off of: rhythm, melody, harmony, texture. You can stand in the music’s shadow, or contrast your tone against the music, or charge forward over the top of the music like you’re heading into battle. With long-form fiction, you have to provide every element on the page. It’s much harder to do in my opinion. Though you don’t have to fight bandmates over a difference of vision, which is nice.

Beat Generation authors such as Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Corso are brought up a few times throughout this work, and some readers may also see their influence in your writing style. How intentional was that, and why do you think the Beat Generation writers continue to be relevant and influential to contemporary generations?

One of the first things that the character does in Someone Who Isn’t Me is throw Howl out the window. I meant this to be a subtle signal that it’s time to write a different kind of book about drugs:

“There must have been a time when its ideas were new and pure, but this was just a reprint. Already, I could feel it breaking down in my hands. I walked to the window and turned the book’s pages until I saw a phrase that produced an immediate physical reaction in me: listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox. I wanted to believe in the existence of that sound so desperately that it felt like being stabbed. For a moment, I held the phrase in my mind, letting the discomfort build, then I closed the book and threw it out the window.”
I love the beats. I love Ginsberg... but it seemed to me that the drug culture of the beats is no longer a vital or true reflection of what things are like now. Heroin is not the same as it was. Fentanyl is killing everyone. Hard drugs are everywhere. It’s a different world. Even the choice to write so much about cell phones is a part of it. Any serious drug user today spends an unbelievable amount of time on their phones. I wanted to capture the energetic spark of the beats while using a more classical formal approach to structure and a more sincere/less “hip” voice.

Please don't hate me for saying this, but the scene in the beginning where your protagonist throws the copy of Howl is certainly one of the most emo scenes I've ever read in a piece of literature (and I relished every moment of it). Whether or not you identify with the "emo" label, did the culture of emo/screamo/hardcore music, in any way influence this piece of writing?

I can’t hate your for saying it’s emo... I HATE MYSELF for it. (JK. Deep inside emo band name joke.)

How did you decide where to draw the line between book Geoff and real Geoff? Did you have a system for deciding what parts of the story and characters should be true to life and which parts could or should be fuzzy?

Mostly the choice was in deciding how much to cut and compress. Shrink it all down to the essentials. Cut characters, cut days, cut dialogue. First book was in the continuous first-person, present tense. No time for reflection. Then the hallucinatory middle section could feel more like a barrage. Life happening. I wanted to remove the agency from the protagonist until the last possible moment and then give him the most important choice of his life.

Has writing this book changed the way you perform or feel about “Understanding In A Car Crash,” particularly since the line “I don't want to feel this way forever” is repeated in the song and the book?

I’ve literally sang that song thousands of times, which means I’ve sang that line somewhere upward of 10,000 times. I’ve sung it throughout so many different periods of my life and felt so different singing it. I’ve come to really embrace the inner Zen Buddhism of the line: this too shall pass. Good, bad, in between. The only constant is change.

One line specifically that stood out for me is on page 113. You say: “the collapsing place inside my chest is pulling everything back towards itself. It wants more, more, always more.” Has this desire for “more” changed or found a new focus since getting sober?

In twelve-step programs, they call this phenomenon, “a god shaped hole” and offer a spiritual solution to fill this soul sickness. I’ve found my own spiritual path but I also embrace the void. That emptiness is essential to everything. I find new things to obsess about every day: coffee, incense, perfume, poetry, working out, playing guitar, etc etc etc. My therapist has suggested that I ask myself a simple question every time I get obsessed with desire: “is this going to make me happy?” The implication is that we don’t become happy when we fulfill one desire. And I understand that but my answer is always... “MAYBE IT WILL.” Much like the character at the end of the novel... “I’d go chasing these echoes until I’m years ahead of myself.”

Do you think diving deeply into creativity has the potential to lead to dangerous places or outcomes?

If it didn’t, what would be the point? Geoff Rickly is the lead singer and songwriter of Thursday and No Devotion. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Someone Who Isn’t Me is his first book.