In Conversation: Geoff Rickly
His debut novel is a moving, if not disorienting story of an addict who takes an extraordinary risk for recovery. If the real Geoff Rickly feels for his fictional self, it's because he's been there.
It seems necessary to tell you that there is a minor character in Geoff Rickly’s recently published novel, Someone Who Isn’t Me, named Norman. He works with the main character, also named Geoff, and he bears witness to his coworker’s heroin addiction, among other things. From my interpretation of the character, Norman cares about Geoff a great deal.
Someone Who Isn’t Me is a work of auto-fiction—a hybrid novel of truth and fiction—but all of the points I just described, at least, are true. The reality is that I’ve been friends with the real Geoff Rickly for 20 years this October, and in that time, I have watched him both climb the peaks and plumb the depths. (To be fair, he also bore witness to my own peaks and valleys over the years, and there were many.) Despite a part in this…