Caught in the Pot
Author Hogan Short has described his novel as a combination of literary fiction, small town romance, and drug addiction. He self-published it this March. Here’s a synopsis:
Caught in the Pot is about a young man falling desperately in love, just as he begins to develop an addiction to opioids, and what lies and truths are worth living and loving through.
Kane is a wandering twenty-something, tattooing his way from town to town, looking for a place he can call home — but what is home? Kane arrives in Sachem, a quaint fishing town on the Atlantic Ocean, where he meets and falls for the charming Tilly. When Kane finds work on a high paying lobster boat, Tilly becomes worried — the dangerous and demanding work has led to tragedies of all kinds.
Caught in the Pot is a beautifully tragic novel by author Hogan Short. If you like sweet contemporary romances — and the power and failure of the human condition — then you’ll love this contained story of love, forgiveness, and the ways in which we hope and struggle to find our own way…and each other.
You can find out more about him at Goodreads Author Hogan Short.
Hogan’s Interview
You prefer to eat a home-cooked meal with family and friends OR (2) to eat in a big-name restaurant?
Right now? Especially after a year of only home cooked meals, with the big-name restaurants completely off the table? Ordering great cocktails and food that might take hours or days to perfect at home with hard to find ingredients? And no dishes? And loud music in dark rooms surrounded by close friends and strangers? I’m going out!
Any place in particular?!
Are you (1) a morning person OR (2) a night owl?
Unfortunately, both. I like to wake up early to get the day going. When I wake up at 9am and then 6am, it feels hard to ignore those three hours and what can be lost and gained. And then I just go to bed late, basically for the same reason. It could be writing or working, or simply watching YouTube. Less sleep is more time.
Interesting perspective!
Do you write (1) when the mood takes you OR (2) at a set time?
It’s hard to say. I write for work, so that’s a set time and I can’t choose the mood. When I wrote Caught in the Pot, I set the amount of daily time, but chose when I wanted to. As long as I hit that two hours a day mark. It was easier in quarantine with all of the extra time.
Takes aim and hits the mark!
(1) Can you name just one favorite novel OR (2) you love too many to just pick one?
Like movies, it’s hard to choose just one. But I love lists and I love favourites. If I’m choosing science fiction, it’s probably something by Michael Crichton, or maybe Blake Crouch. Romance? Probably Atonement or Normal People. But if I am going to go with my favourite author of all time, and choose a favourite book of his…I’d have to say No Country For Old Men.
Love too many to pick one!
What is your (1) favorite book quote OR (2) favorite movie quote?
Well, my favourite movie quote of all time is probably from Alien. It’s when Ash is describing the titular creature and it’s so poetic but also to the point, essentially how Ash was designed to interpret things. “Its structural integrity is matched only by its hostility.” That or “I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her” from Notting Hill (of course).
As for my favourite book quotes, I’m going to be a little cheeky here. It’s a famously long, run-on sentence that I read over and over, thinking about and learning from each time, like it’s own short story. It’s from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. I love it because it’s poetic, it’s smart, it’s incredibly difficult, it’s borderline unnecessary, and it’s completely McCarthy.
“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses’ ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”
Not just one movie quote, but also quotes book !
Thanks for being interviewed, Hogan!
