Already bought it? Good.
Now read it!
Already read it? Good.
Now let's discuss it.
I used a "pseudonym" on this one because Phony McFakename is a great name for comedy, horror, and weird books. But this one's different. It's "serious." Not to say there isn't humor and fun to be had with it. But Wahoo isn't avant-garde or bizarro in any way. Structurally, it's a drama. (Though this book started as an epic monster-mash story about the main girl fighting Jefferson-descended Lovecraftian fish monsters all through UVA. But the monsters weren't working, so on my editor's advice, I dropped them and just made it about the now no-longer-monster-fighting girl.)
As you know (since you already read it), Wahoo is a short YA novel about a young woman leaving home and visiting college for the first time. She makes some friends, struggles with her eating disorder, and ends up caught in a police raid on a huge outdoor party. It's a quick, fun, emotional read. Very slice-of-life-y.
About that title. It's set at the University of Virginia. Students there call themselves "wahoos." Sometimes these students scream, "Wahoowa!" Scientists are baffled by this phenomenon. But seriously, the "wahoo" is the school's unofficial mascot. (Read all about it.) It's a fish that can drink twice its own weight. I think that means UVA students like to drink alcohol.
There's not a lot of alcohol (or football, a huge UVA pastime) in this here book. Sure, there's a bit of drinking, at the big epic party scene. But the main character is basically an introvert. So don't expect too much sensationalism.
Now about it being set in Charlottesville...I wrote this months before the KKK even rallied here in July. But I was able to go back in and work that event into the plot, as it was relevant to some of the police/race issues that are addressed by my characters. (I'm a local, I was a UVA student, I pay attention to things, so my characters have some thoughts.)
But that alt-right rally that hit our city in August, killing three and maiming dozens more?
We're still processing that. Our whole city has mild PTSD. The torch mob attack was a few feet from where I work. The downtown attack was a mile from where I live. Before that rally, Charlottesville was mostly just known as the top place to live on quality-of-life lists, or mistaken for Charlotte, North Carolina. Just a progressive college town with nice colonial architecture and a fairly standard set of societal issues. But now...
The rally was a huge elephant in the Charlottesville room, and way too big to try to address in my already-completed, about-to-be-published book. Plus, Wahoo is set during the July 2017 Midsummers party, so chronologically...the rally hadn't happened yet in its world
For now, I was able to persuade my publisher to insert an Author's Note at the start saying that the alt-right rally is relevant to some issues in Wahoo, but I do not (can not) address it.
Will I address it in a sequel? Time (and sales figures) will tell. Goodness knows my characters have some thoughts about it.
Hope you enjoyed Wahoo. Or if you're reading this and haven't read Wahoo yet...shame! But I forgive you. Go read it.
-Phony McFakename
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