Free Book Weekend

To celebrate the launch of Heroes of Hollywood Boulevard we’re having a bumper weekend giveaway.  As Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice lands on the silver screen this Friday March, 25 Venice Books is giving away Kindle copies of the superheist novel for the whole weekend.  The offers don’t end there though, oh no.  Just as Batman and Superman have Wonder Woman, Aquaman and The Flash to keep them company, Heroes of Hollywood Boulevard will be accompanied by Louden’s bibliography.  Don’t miss this opportunity to pick up 4 books and pay 0.

Lost Angeles: A Novel

RRP $2.99 – Friday March, 25 – Sunday March, 27 FREE!
Full time whiskey enthusiast Doug Morgan is on a downward spiral.  Over the past two years the Irish man has played witness to the slow and steady decay of his life and he’s finally called time.  Haunted by an unacknowledged pain Doug swaps the white collar nine to five of Belfast for one last charge into oblivion in the City of Angels.  A scotch-soaked stranger in a strange land Doug befriends a series of like minded and self destructive vagabonds who, like him, are aiming for chaos.  

In a city that sees thousands of people per year come to be discovered why has one man come to get lost?

Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l]

RRP $2.99 – Saturday March, 26 & Sunday March, 27 FREE!
The sophomore follow-up to Lost Angeles is the semi-biographical tale of author David Louden's alter-ego Doug Morgan as he struggles to connect with his father Jack, his mother Ruth and the working class ideology of "a real job".

From his early adventure filled days in Poleglass through to the alcohol induced haze of his early twenties Doug's life (much like the city) is one at conflict with itself. Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] is filled with humour, sex, guilt and the shameful dream of a boy wanting to create more than a family of haunted heirs.  

White Mexicans: & Other Short Stories That All Definitely Happened*

RRP $2.99 – Friday March, 25 – Sunday March, 27 FREE

Too poor to escape Los Angeles, too weak to survive in it; Doug Morgan takes a job writing an Exploitation movie to pay the bills.  Struggling with the pay-off between art and commerce he finds himself on the path to redemption, if he can scrape himself off rock bottom.

Half novella, half short story compilation, White Mexicans is an American tale told in the Irish yarn tradition.  Populated with Louden’s usual spit and spite dialogue, off-colour humour and poetic lamentation of a world gone wrong; his third outing is a mix of fable and low-life fiction.

Heroes of Hollywood Boulevard [New Release]

RRP $2.99 – Friday March, 25 – Sunday March, 27 FREE
Stu Hogan is idolized by every child walking Hollywood Boulevard apart from his own.  Working the star-studded street as a Batman impersonator alongside good pal Brian (Superman) and steroid shooting Ricky (The Incredible Hulk), Stu’s love of alcohol, gambling and strippers have left him behind with his alimony, down on his luck and looking for a quick fix for both.

Seeing an opportunity to change his circumstances, Stu enlists his fellow superheroes for a daring heist that has the impersonators fall short of their counterparts’ lofty standards causing friendships to fracture and divisions to become deadly.

* The statement that all stories “definitely happened” is one used for entertainment purposes and should not be considered factual or legally binding.  All too often Mr. Louden is full of shit.

  

Three Books for the Price of Half of One

BOOK DEALS SATURDAY 5th & SUNDAY 6th DECEMBER

SYNOPSIS: Full time whiskey enthusiast Doug Morgan is on a downward spiral. Over the past two years the Irish man has played witness to the slow and steady decay of his life and he’s finally called time. Haunted by an unacknowledged pain Doug swaps the white collar nine to five of Belfast for one last charge into oblivion in the City of Angels.
A scotch-soaked stranger in a strange land Doug befriends a series of like minded and self destructive vagabonds who, like him, are aiming for chaos. In a city that sees thousands of people per year come to be discovered why has one man come to get lost?  USA [here] UK [here]

SYNOPSIS: The sophomore follow-up to LOST ANGELES is the semi-biographical tale of author David Louden's alter-ego Doug Morgan as he struggles to connect with his father Jack, his mother Ruth and the working class ideology of "a real job". 

From his early adventure filled days in Poleglass through to the alcohol induced haze of his early twenties Doug's life (much like the city) is one at conflict with itself. BONE IDOL is filled with humour, sex, guilt and the shameful dream of a boy wanting to create more than a family of haunted heirs. USA [here] UK [here]

Too poor to escape Los Angeles, too weak to survive in it; Doug Morgan takes a job writing an Exploitation movie to pay the bills. Struggling with the pay-off between art and commerce he finds himself on the path to redemption, if he can scrape himself off rock bottom. 

Half novella, half short story compilation, White Mexicans & Other Short Stories That All Definitely Happened* is an American tale told in the Irish yarn tradition. Populated with Louden’s usual spit & spite dialogue, off-colour humour and poetic lamentation of a world gone wrong; his third outing is a mix of fable and low-life fiction.  USA [here] UK [here]

*The statement that all stories “definitely happened” is one used for entertainment purposes and should not be considered factual or legally binding. All too often Mr. Louden is full of shit.

Birthday Giveaway

LOST ANGELES

Amazon US | Amazon UK

BONE IDOL [bohn ahyd-l]

Amazon US | Amazon UK

WHITE MEXICANS

Amazon US | Amazon UK

A Visceral Romp Through A Beautiful Mind

LOST ANGELES

Amazon.com Review

This book is not about vice, or about the vacant. It's a story of lost hope turning in on itself to be birthed as triumph. Yes, there are bucket loads of drugs, sex and mayhem. All in the course of people finding themselves out. A dive into the abyss to find the sun. If you enjoy Bukowski or Palahniuk you'll love this author. Just be warned it is very difficult to put down.

A White Mexican Walks Into a Bar…

It’s been twenty months since David Louden released his second book, Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].  In that year and a half plus he’s been busy working on a TV commission through NI Screen, buying himself some land, and getting hitched in Las Vegas, NV.  You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Louden voiced in his new book, White Mexicans, is a more mature, calm, peaceful man… but you’d be wrong.

CS: White Mexicans… what’s all that about then?

DL: It’s an LA term for the British and Irish who come over to Hollywood and take all of the LA acting and movie jobs.

CS: So this is a book about Hollywood?

DL: No.

CS: Care to share what it is about then?  How’d you get to it?  What’s it about?  Help me out here.

DL: Aaah… yeah… sure.  Ok, so when I finished Lost Angeles I really wanted to write the movie that they were discussing in the middle third… maybe it was a bit later, anyway… yeah.  I’m a lover of Exploitation cinema…

CS: Why?

DL: It cuts through the bullshit.  Exploitation cinema is more equal for starters.  There’s a higher number of women in lead roles, minorities in lead roles, disabled actors in lead roles.  Anyway, the movie… Swasucka… I really wanted to write it but knew that it would be a waste of fucking time.  Who’s going to make a Blax-Naziploitation movie about an African-American Hitler made in a test tube?  So I started writing another story instead.  I got one draft out of me but it was bollocks so I tossed most of it to one side and took the bits I thought had heart and used them as the framework for Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].  I thought “this is the book that’ll connect with people”.  Lost Angeles did pretty well, I thought Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] was better so I was pretty sick about how piss-poor it sold.

CS: How bad was it?

DL: It was BAD, Clive.  It made me go away and think about my voice.  What I had to say and more importantly if anyone out there actually gave a shit or are they only interested in sexy vampires, and cuddly werewolves and shit like that.  So I started working on a Noir and after a first draft I thought “this is alright, this could be a movie”.  So I started reworking it as a movie.

CS: You told me about this.  It was long, right?

DL: A fucking monster.  (laughs) The cunt was like, 210 minutes.  I couldn’t edit it for shit.  So I thought, “ok, maybe not a movie… maybe TV”.  I pitched it to NI Screen and they gave me the money I needed to develop it and in the end I handed in a six episode mini-series.

CS: That doesn’t explain much about White Mexicans though.

DL: Well I’m getting to that bit, fuck.  Script rewriting is a tired, boring, lonely land to be stuck in.  I started writing short stories to kill the boredom while at the same time I started a second draft of the project I’d started after Lost Angeles, but from a different direction.  Eventually I had enough for a novella and when I noticed that many of my short stories tied into either the same characters, the same themes, or even just the same world, I wondered whether a novella-short story hybrid could be interesting.

CS: And is it?

DL: I thought Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] would be a book people wanted to read.  How should I know?  You read it.  You tell me!

CS: Ok, so we’ll forgo a synopsis on the short stories.  What’s the novella about?

DL: Narratively, it’s Doug in Los Angeles.  Life has taken its toll, money has dried up and he’s living hand-to-mouth in the Motel for Movie Stars.  He takes a gig writing a movie for Winston…

CS: Swasucka?

DL: No, a different one.  But to tell you what it is, is to bugger up the first bit of the book so you’ll just have to read it.

CS: But it is an Exploitation movie?!

DL: Totes.  Aside from that, its about a lot of things.  I’ve tried to tie in some of the BIG picture arguments that have been going on in the media, the world, everywhere.  Notions of identity.  Relationships.  The usual hypocracy, bigotry and all that.

CS: That’s definitely a big one here at the moment. 

DL: The whole world is one big diseased asshole.  You’ve got Police in America killing men based on the colour of their skin.  You’ve women being persecuted for wanting control of their own bodies.  Here (in Northern Ireland) we’ve got the DUP and their callus cunt crusade against gay, lesbian, and transgender COUPLES… not just individuals!  They’re after them two at a time!!  Blood bans, adoption restrictions, marriage.  We’re talking the basic human rights here.

CS: But that’s them all over.

DL: Oh absolutely.  They’re trying their damnedest to build a two tier society.  Them and then everybody else.  We can do whatever we want though… as long as it’s ok within their outdated binary understanding of the world as interpreted through a three-thousand year old text which they don’t even bother sticking to most of the time!

CS: You’re passionate about this.

DL: Fuck passionate, I’m fucked off!  You’ve college kids in America raping young women and being paraded across National News as the victims.  “These poor men’s promising athletic careers have been ruined by this incident”… ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!  You’re a god-damn rapist!!  You don’t deserve sympathy.  You deserve chemical castration and then a beating with cinderblocks.

CS: And all this is covered in White Mexicans?

DL: It’s maybe not as clearly underlined, but yeah.  There are some issues that are hammered at and others that are left to you to mull over.  The full title is White Mexicans & Other Short Stories That All Definitely Happened (astrix) and then an amendment that specifies that I’m full of shit about them… you know… all…

CS: Definitely happening!

DL: Right.

CS: So this book isn’t biographical?

DL: It is and it isn’t, Clive.  I mean I did live on the Oldpark Road as a kid and I did have a childhood dog, and there are characters who exist but the overarching narrative of White Mexicans is less true than anything before.

CS: How was that to write?

DL: Different.

CS: And what was the reasoning behind it?

DL: Well after Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] sucked cock in the sales department I looked around at all this sexy vampire malarky.  I knew I couldn’t write a story like that, I’m just not built that way, but I could write about writing a story like that.  So I did, and in a way, the book is very aware that it is a book.

CS: Am I in this one?

DL: No.  You’re in the TV show.  And if it does well you’ll have your own Funko Pop so be nice to me.

Some of the short story extracts from White Mexicans are available to read through Literally Stories.

White Mexicans is available in Paperback and on Amazon Kindle from Monday 13^th July 2015.  Lost Angeles and Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] can be purchased now.

May Day Giveaway

To celebrate the May Day weekend BOTH Lost Angeles and Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] are free to Kindle users.

LOST ANGELES (May 2nd and 3rd)

WAS $3.00 NOW FREE!!

Full time whiskey enthusiast Doug Morgan is on a downward spiral.  Over the past two years the Irish man has played witness to the slow and steady decay of his life and he’s finally called time.  Haunted by an unacknowledged pain Doug swaps the white collar nine to five of Belfast for one last charge into oblivion in the City of Angels.  A scotch-soaked stranger in a strange land Doug befriends a series of like minded and self destructive vagabonds who, like him, are aiming for chaos.  

In a city that sees thousands of people per year come to be discovered why has one man come to get lost?

BONE IDOL [bohn ahyd-l] (May 2nd)

WAS $3.00, NOW FREE!

The sophomore follow-up to Lost Angeles is the semi-biographical tale of author David Louden's alter-ego Doug Morgan as he struggles to connect with his father Jack, his mother Ruth and the working class ideology of "a real job".

From his early adventure filled days in Poleglass through to the alcohol induced haze of his early twenties Doug's life (much like the city) is one at conflict with itself. Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] is filled with humour, sex, guilt and the shameful dream of a boy wanting to create more than a family of haunted heirs.

Smashed Bone

For the next two weeks the first 'Part' of Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] is free through Smashwords.  Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l]: Part I is an extract from my 2013 released Roman á clef novel about the early days of Douglas Morgan (1979-1991) and deals with the often troubled relationship between his mother, Ruth, and drunken deadbeat father, Jack.

Interested/curious folk can pick up the 1/3 book via Smashwords by clicking on the link [here].  If you like it and want the rest it's available via Amazon Kindle [here] for U.S customers, and [here] for the UK.  It can also be found in paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all other carriers of low life lit.

Synopsis [sɪˈnɒp.sɪs]

The sophomore follow-up to Lost Angeles is the semi-biographical tale of author David Louden's alter-ego Doug Morgan as he struggles to connect with his father Jack, his mother Ruth and the working class ideology of "a real job". 

From his early adventure filled days in Poleglass through to the alcohol induced haze of his early twenties Doug's life (much like the city) is one at conflict with itself. Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] is filled with humour, sex, guilt and the shameful dream of a boy wanting to create more than a family of haunted heirs. 

Other Titles by the Author

LOST ANGELES

Full time whiskey enthusiast Doug Morgan is on a downward spiral. Over the past two years the Irish man has played witness to the slow and steady decay of his life and he’s finally called time. Haunted by an unacknowledged pain Doug swaps the white collar nine to five of Belfast for one last charge into oblivion in the City of Angels. A scotch-soaked stranger in a strange land Doug befriends a series of like minded and self destructive vagabonds who, like him, are aiming for chaos. In a city that sees thousands of people per year come to be discovered why has one man come to get lost? 

DOWNWARD FACING DOUG

The two Doug Morgan, Roman á clef novels in one compilation.  Downward Facing Doug features Louden's protagonist Morgan on his self destructive ride through Los Angeles in his debut novel, Lost Angeles, before charting the formative years in 1980's-90's Belfast, in Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l].  Also included are three shorts from the forthcoming collection, Short Stories That All Definitely Happened.

Advice From A Dog

My phone rang and when I answered it was a man on the other end of the line.  He sounded tall, angry and spoke of things that weren’t particularly nice and that were about to happen to me, imminently.

            ‘Wait a fucking minute!’ I shouted ‘Who the fuck is this?!’

            ‘I’m Maria’s brother.’

            Ah right.  Things had ended badly with her, she was cock crazed, needy and apparently, willing to set her brother on me.  He was in the military but one night over drinks she told me that he wasn’t even a soldier, he was a chef.

            ‘You better watch your fucking back you fucking Irish prick…’

            ‘Don’t you fucking threaten me you cunt, you might be army but we kill army.’ I spat, having never involved myself in the bullshit of my motherland I suddenly found myself more than happy to bask in it.  Such a fickle little brat.  ‘You want to start some shit be my guest…’

            After a little shouting on each end of the patchy AT&T cellular line I gave him my address, unlocked the door and sat waiting in the living room for the inevitable appearance of the brother.  I had never heard of a relationship that ended any way other than badly.  It made me wonder why, as a species, we hadn’t died out or figured a way to reproduce asexually.  But how we needed the big O, the touch of another, the vanity of being wanted.  The clock rounded the hour.  I was getting bored so I grabbed a beer from the fridge and took the pug outside for her nightly business.  Sniffing around she pee’d in the same spot she had struck that morning, and the previous night, and the previous morning.  The once rich green patch of turf scorched to a brown deathly weed.

            Back in the living room I checked my phone, no missed calls, no new messages.  Thumbing into the call log I checked the time of the incoming duel.  He was late.  He had said he was with Maria and was coming straight to me.  Chef Boyo should have been with me now, slugs should have been exchanged, a victor announced before the police rolled up and took us both in.  Nothing.  Impatiently I stuck in a DVD, broke open another beer and rolled myself a joint to silence my tourette-spitting mind.  Setting the tip of the rolled paper alight I inhaled deep.  I checked the clock.  Very late.  Getting to my feet I lifted some weights, working my arms, pumping them up for powerful bursts of usage, woke them for work.  The army chef invading my abode through modern technology, threatening me, trying to put the fear of God into me, intimidating me in my own living room, the cheek.  He’d get his.

            I finished the cigarette.

            No sign of the chef. 

            I considered phoning him again, asking him where he was, offering him traffic advice on the best way to get here.

            ‘You don’t want to do that.’ the dog said, looking up at me from under her ruffled fawn wrinkle.

            ‘What do you know about it?’

            ‘I know enough to know that you’re meant to let sleeping dogs lie.’

            ‘How long have you been waiting to say that?’

            ‘A few weeks.’ yawned the pug rolling on to her back stretching all four paws towards the heavens.

            I lit a cigarette and took a hit, the adrenaline had been coursing around my body for, I check the clock, over an hour and a half.  Now it was beginning to drip from my finger tips and my eyes suddenly felt sore and misshapen in their sockets.  Reaching down to the dog I scratched her behind her black velvet ear making her grumble with contentment.

            ‘You look tired.’

            ‘I am tired.’ I replied, smoking with one hand while petting the dog with the other.

            ‘Don’t you worry about lung cancer?’ she asked.

            ‘If I started worrying I don’t think I’d know where to stop.  You know I found a lump in my balls.’

            ‘I thought I smelt that.’

            My heart raced to my throat, my anatomy was threatening to turn me inside out as my pulse shot to over one hundred and fifty and I realised that my dog, my little pug could probably answer the question that’s on my mind.

            ‘Is it, is it cancer?’

            ‘How should I know?’

            ‘You just said I thought I smelt that.’

            ‘That doesn’t mean it’s cancer.’ she replied chewing on her inside claws.

            ‘What does it mean?’

            ‘It means you should probably have someone look at it.’

            ‘I don’t have health insurance.’

            ‘Maybe you should try and date yourself a nurse, instead of strippers and bored housewives.’

            I rolled myself another MJ and put it to my lips, grumping to herself the little barrel chested princess got to her feet and click, click, clicked across the room setting herself down by the backdoor.  She looked at me sorrowfully with her dark chocolate eyes.  Smoking the joint my throat dried and cracked and I stubbed it out before the fear of throat cancer took hold but my head was beginning to swim and soon the idea of the big C echoed through my dome like I’d sunk my head into a bucket.

            ‘Crack a window.’ the pug said.

            ‘Sorry?’

            ‘Could you crack a window?  I’m small, I can’t take that stink as easily as you can.  Do we have any chips?’

            Walking across the room I crack a window, the cool air soothing the small claustrophobic room.

            ‘Why don’t you lock the door, turn that DVD off and go to bed?’

            ‘I don’t want him thinking I’m chicken.’

            ‘How bad can chicken be?’

            ‘Chicken is bad, chicken is as bad as cancer.’

            The dog lapped at her water with her long pink tongue. ‘So what?  So you have him come over, you beat him up and send him back to Maria.  Give her another reason to hate you.’

            ‘That’s the plan.’ I snort puffing out my chest.

            ‘That’s a terrible plan.  After what you did to her the least you can do is take a pounding from him, it’ll make them both feel better.’

            ‘I won’t feel better, and what do you mean after what I did to her?!  She tried to cut my throat.’

            ‘She told you she loved you.’

            ‘After two dates.’

            ‘She’s impulsive.’

            ‘She’s nuts.’

            ‘And you’re talking to a dog.’

            Touché, smart little bitch.

            ‘Well you started it.’  I walked to the window, pulling back the blinds and watched as a set of headlights burned brightly in the night sky, drawing closer and closer before turning by the apartment and off into the distance, towards a destination elsewhere.  I looked to the clock again, it’s rounded on another hour.  I sighed with fatigue as the last of the adrenaline falls from my bones and I’m left listless, limp and a little rejected.

            ‘He’s not coming.’ she sighed, curling up in her bed.

            ‘You don’t know that.’

            ‘I know Fairfax to Venice in late night traffic does not take two hours.’

            ‘Yeah,’ I conceded ‘you’re probably right.’

            ‘Take it from me, you’re better off leaving it be.  She’s going to hate you regardless, leave her to her anger.  It’s all you’ve ever offered her unconditionally.’

            As I nodded, my jaw stretched and an enormous yawn birthed itself from deep within my soul.  The hinge of my face, burdened by its girth, ached.  Moments later with my eyes watering it returns to its resting position and I’m done.  Closing the window I flick the latch on the front door, turn the DVD off, drop to one knee and plant a kiss on top of the soft little furry head that smells like popcorn, always.

          I curled up in bed on my side, placing a hand between my legs to stop them from crushing my lumpy balls.

Advice from a Dog and other stories for misfits are part of Chase The Moon: Issue One and available to buy [here: US] [here: UK].

Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away...

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lost Angeles

by David Louden

Giveaway ends July 14, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

A well-written tale of the seedy LA underworld

A YEAR AND A HALF on and we're looking back at some of the reviews from Lost Angeles...and maybe even convince you to buy yourself a copy. Yup, that's right I'm that much of a whore.

This is a great book and I would thoroughly recommend it.  After an enthralling start I was expecting a weak ending but it just got better and better.  Superb.

[Amazon USA] [Amazon UK]

Great Find

A YEAR AND A HALF on and we're looking back at some of the reviews from Lost Angeles...and maybe even convince you to buy yourself a copy. Yup, that's right I'm that much of a whore.

Doug Morgan is a young Irishman in Los Angeles with ten grand in his pocket and self-destruction in mind.  With this premise, you could be forgiven for thinking that David Louden’s Lost Angeles would be little more than a comical booze-fuelled odyssey through the low (and high) life of Noughties Hollywood.  But what Louden achieves is much greater than this.  By contrasting and paralleling Morgan’s misadventures in the acid neon glare of the clubs and dives of LA with the unravelling relationship in wintry Belfast that led him there, Louden has created a work of depth and warmth that means for once, Bukowski comparisons are justified.  Louden has a turn of phrase that could put bigger names to shame, and an eye for detail that means his Belfast and North Hollywood are as sharply-defined as the well-drawn characters.  Moving, big-hearted and often hilarious, Louden has produced something genuinely special.  Not to be missed.

[Amazon USA] [Amazon UK]

Free For All

I'M GETTING MARRIED TODAY. Everything is free so if you're looking a copy of Lost Angeles or Bone Idol [bohn ahyd-l] but don't believe in money then today is the day to grab them.

Off to get hitched, laters!

Wasn't For Me

A YEAR AND A HALF on and we're looking back at some of the reviews from Lost Angeles...and maybe even convince you to buy yourself a copy. Yup, that's right I'm that much of a whore...and just to prove they're not all positive.

Just not my type of read. I couldn't find any characters I wanted to know more about. Didn't finish it.

[Amazon USA] [Amazon UK]

Loved This Book!

A YEAR AND A HALF on and we're looking back at some of the reviews from Lost Angeles...and maybe even convince you to buy yourself a copy. Yup, that's right I'm that much of a whore.

I’ve always been fascinated with the dark side of life; how somebody from an affluent family can tumble into the abyss of drugs and alcohol or how somebody from the worst possible upbringing can rise above it all and find success.  But most of the time, in real life, it’s a little of both, somebody from an all too common place in society claws their way up and then…bam!...there is a catalyst, spins a person around, and the descent into darkness begins.  This is life and this is, much to my pleasure, the joy and truth of reading Lost Angeles.  David Louden brings to life a cast of colourful, deeply flawed, characters and puts them in one place as he unfolds a tale of love, lust, loss, strength, sorrow, friendship, joy and, most importantly, hope, all displayed through an alcohol saturated, drug hazed lens.  I loved this book for its honesty and its humor, but also for its glimpses into the potential darkness that looms within all of us.  I especially loved it, however, for its humanity.  Five stars?  Absolutely.

[Amazon USA] [Amazon UK]