BOOKS
THE MECHANICALS
A NOVEL BY TREVOR PAYNE
UNSOLICITED PRESS
The Mechanicals is a modern-day love comedy tracking the journey of a young couple, Jackie and Norman, who are brought together by an unplanned pregnancy, the imperative of family allowing them to survive their wild and unsettled twenties and their functionally alternative thirties, ultimately leading them to a deeper understanding of what they have come to mean to each other. The event that catalyzes this outcome is the death of Guy Roche, the world champion MMA fighter Norman becomes friends with through his work as a feature writer for a men’s magazine, Voyeur. Through helping Guy’s family decide what to do with his estate, Norman and Jackie become closer to Guy’s widow, Natasha, a former adult film star who models for them her intuitive understanding about how to exist in the messiness of the universe.
Trevor Payne’s The Mechanicals is a sexy, intelligent, insightful, and elegant novel about the body, beauty, violence, love, and writing. Payne peoples his narrative with a compelling cast of characters who prove this truth: “So simple, this world we live in, all it wants to do is fall apart.” A debut effort, this book is also a singular achievement
--Jeffery Renard Allen, author of Rails Under My Back and Song of the Shank
In this gripping story of a fighter's mysterious life and death, Trevor Payne pulls you behind the curtain to show you how mixed martial arts intersect with entertainments both hypnotic and voyeuristic, like porn. The effect is bruising and disorienting, and if you're lucky, the narrative, just like its subjects, will make you learn how to make strength for yourself.
--Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil
Trevor Payne writes with the pleasurable density of Don DeLillo. But with the beautiful prose comes a wrestling, sometimes literal, with the convoluted state of modern masculinity. I read it while doing a lot of pushups.
-Joel Stein, author of Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity and In Defense of Elitism
A CUP OF WATER
Sam Harrington, a thirty-something high school English teacher, has been in a six-year malaise after suffering the loss of his college sweetheart and first love, Catherine Tsai. When his best friend Alistair, a drama teacher at the high school, is caught in an affair with a student, Sam’s world is turned on end. As the drama salaciously unfolds through the confessions of Alistair, the student, and Alistair’s wife Anne, Sam struggles to resolve his own insecurities.
A Cup of Water provides a firsthand perspective into Sam’s psychological turmoil—at times humorous, painful, and poignant—as he reconsiders his past in order to take control of his future.
