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.
As someone who “can’t pick a favorite” anything, Thursday has been my favorite band for 20 years now, and Geoff in particular my favorite singer-songwriter. A magical quality of music is how songs and lyrics can just hit you different at different stages of your life. A lot happens between being 15 and 35, yet some part of Thursday has always resonated with me over the last two decades.
I preordered SWIM the moment it was available and I was both surprised and not surprised at how poetic, raw, exciting, and real it was. There were times when I forgot it was fiction, and there were parts I would find myself praying were fictionalized because I couldn’t bear the thought of them being true.
A huge congratulations to Geoff on such a wonderful literary feat.
I have loved Thursday for over 20 years and opening the book was like hearing the voice of an old friend. Just totally surreal and amazing.
Geoff Rickly has been an amazing inspiration and role model for me and this book moved me and touched me in a way I honestly wasn’t prepared for or had anticipated and that to me is just so wonderful and amazing— lt’s so honest and raw. It really is Geoff and its the soul of Thursday the band in an entirely new medium of expression.
Geoff’s words are so impactful and the direct correlation between his lyrics is mind blowing- there are passages in there that I read and it’s just like ‘holy shit this is the total heart and soul of Geoff Rickly, of Thursday, and their music in one complete package’— I’ve been waiting 20 years for this and I never knew.
Every person deserves redemption and is worthy of respect and dignity as a human being. This book radiates strength. I found solace in this book; I felt a part of me heal along as if I was one of the characters in the book. I found renewed hope and inspiration.
Thank you so much for being a part of and sharing something so special. Not just with SWIM but for Anti-Matter-- this makes a difference. The world needs to have a light shone on these issues.
Norman I have to apologize for having the need to comment on everything you write about in anti- matter. But I respect your writing and think that it is great that fans can comment on interesting stories you write. After reading this interview it reminded me of something I read recently about a man writing a fiction book on phenomena that is real: phantom islands: “ A phantom island is a cool name for a type of cartography error that crops up several times in the history of mapmaking: believing that an island exists where none does.” ( I think it is interesting approach that someone wrote a fiction book about something that is real. Drug addiction ) And this man writing this book about phantom islands found out that someone beat him to it. But this other author wrote a nonfiction book about phantom islands. And this author writing a fiction book about phantom islands believes that his yet to be published book will be more interesting then the nonfiction book about phantom islands : (I apologize it is quite a lengthy quote) “ The other, more intriguing possibility is that this book shows the limits of nonfiction. I’ve always had more trouble reading nonfiction books compared to fiction. I find that peculiar, in a way — I value knowledge of the real world quite a lot, while I don’t care about fictional universes at all. I suppose that fiction, freed from the constraints of truth-telling, is just more optimized to be interesting. But also, learning about the world can be done in a variety of ways, and storytelling is seldom the most efficient or pleasurable one, probably because real stories are always imperfect. I like reading an info-dump like Wikipedia more than I like reading (most) nonfiction books.
The Phantom Atlas tries to tell nonfictional stories. In theory this should be easy: the stories around phantom islands are fun and interesting by default. But in practice it doesn’t work that well, and I think it’s because phantom islands are already fictional. The point of reading about them is to be amazed and inspired, which is, of course, the point of fiction in general. Treating them as an encyclopedic subject is sort of pointless (unless you’re writing in a literal encyclopedia).”
Thank you for this conversation!
As someone who “can’t pick a favorite” anything, Thursday has been my favorite band for 20 years now, and Geoff in particular my favorite singer-songwriter. A magical quality of music is how songs and lyrics can just hit you different at different stages of your life. A lot happens between being 15 and 35, yet some part of Thursday has always resonated with me over the last two decades.
I preordered SWIM the moment it was available and I was both surprised and not surprised at how poetic, raw, exciting, and real it was. There were times when I forgot it was fiction, and there were parts I would find myself praying were fictionalized because I couldn’t bear the thought of them being true.
A huge congratulations to Geoff on such a wonderful literary feat.
I have loved Thursday for over 20 years and opening the book was like hearing the voice of an old friend. Just totally surreal and amazing.
Geoff Rickly has been an amazing inspiration and role model for me and this book moved me and touched me in a way I honestly wasn’t prepared for or had anticipated and that to me is just so wonderful and amazing— lt’s so honest and raw. It really is Geoff and its the soul of Thursday the band in an entirely new medium of expression.
Geoff’s words are so impactful and the direct correlation between his lyrics is mind blowing- there are passages in there that I read and it’s just like ‘holy shit this is the total heart and soul of Geoff Rickly, of Thursday, and their music in one complete package’— I’ve been waiting 20 years for this and I never knew.
Every person deserves redemption and is worthy of respect and dignity as a human being. This book radiates strength. I found solace in this book; I felt a part of me heal along as if I was one of the characters in the book. I found renewed hope and inspiration.
Thank you so much for being a part of and sharing something so special. Not just with SWIM but for Anti-Matter-- this makes a difference. The world needs to have a light shone on these issues.
ahhh this made me cry. Geoff is the best and this is a great interview!!
Norman I have to apologize for having the need to comment on everything you write about in anti- matter. But I respect your writing and think that it is great that fans can comment on interesting stories you write. After reading this interview it reminded me of something I read recently about a man writing a fiction book on phenomena that is real: phantom islands: “ A phantom island is a cool name for a type of cartography error that crops up several times in the history of mapmaking: believing that an island exists where none does.” ( I think it is interesting approach that someone wrote a fiction book about something that is real. Drug addiction ) And this man writing this book about phantom islands found out that someone beat him to it. But this other author wrote a nonfiction book about phantom islands. And this author writing a fiction book about phantom islands believes that his yet to be published book will be more interesting then the nonfiction book about phantom islands : (I apologize it is quite a lengthy quote) “ The other, more intriguing possibility is that this book shows the limits of nonfiction. I’ve always had more trouble reading nonfiction books compared to fiction. I find that peculiar, in a way — I value knowledge of the real world quite a lot, while I don’t care about fictional universes at all. I suppose that fiction, freed from the constraints of truth-telling, is just more optimized to be interesting. But also, learning about the world can be done in a variety of ways, and storytelling is seldom the most efficient or pleasurable one, probably because real stories are always imperfect. I like reading an info-dump like Wikipedia more than I like reading (most) nonfiction books.
The Phantom Atlas tries to tell nonfictional stories. In theory this should be easy: the stories around phantom islands are fun and interesting by default. But in practice it doesn’t work that well, and I think it’s because phantom islands are already fictional. The point of reading about them is to be amazed and inspired, which is, of course, the point of fiction in general. Treating them as an encyclopedic subject is sort of pointless (unless you’re writing in a literal encyclopedia).”