It was afternoon, that liminal space between morning and night, when you really wish you could be napping, but you drank too much coffee to make it happen.
I was exercising. It was an online video where they guide you through silly-looking movements with sillier-sounding names. For example, “butt-kickers.”
I was doing my cool-down, trying some self-directed yoga-esque stretches, doing a move I’ll call the Moaning Walrus, when I noticed a book on the shelf.
My parents-in-law, Bill and Karen, have an outstanding bookshelf. It claims its own wall downstairs in the finished basement, four columns with five shelves apiece, each crammed with books on history, computing, politics, golf-swinging, and fiction.
It’s the fiction that always attracts my attention. They’ve got old classics down there, like Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, more recent hits like Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and others I’ve never heard of. And then there’s the Vonnegut section.
I, like pretty much everybody, love the works of Kurt Vonnegut. His prose is readable yet meaningful, his style flippant yet profound. His works feel as relevant now as they were then. And it helps that I feel a personal affinity with Kilgore Trout.
Bill and Karen keep a row of Vonnegut’s novels along the bottom shelf. As I was stretching and groaning, I read the titles, one by one, mentally noting which I’d read and which I needed to.
Slaughterhouse-Five? Check. Cat’s Cradle? Check. Player Piano? Couldn’t remember—check later. Armageddon in Retrospect? Check, like a month ago. Mother Night?
Mother Night? I thought. Wait. That’s my book!
Or at least, it’s going to be. Later this month, I’m releasing a complimentary duology of short stories. The first is (was) going to be Father Day. The second is…taken.
This bothered me. Perhaps more than it should’ve. For the rest of that day and into the night, I got progressively more pissed at Kurt Vonnegut.
Why’d he have to take that title? I thought to myself. My own voice in my own head sounded like the growl of a particularly petty gremlin. It sounds cool, and it fits my stories, and now I don’t even want to read his stupid book.
…Okay, it’s probably not stupid, it’s probably awesome. But I’m still not going to read it.
…Okay, I’ll probably still read it. But I’m still mad at him.
I personally despise when writers name books based on SEO viability, but even I’ll admit that sharing a title with a classic isn’t ideal. Every mention of Mother Night will be a mention of Kurt’s book, not mine.
Fortunately, my book is still in the final trimester, so there’s time to change the name before the doctor (being Google in this clunky metaphor, I guess) slaps it on the birth certificate.
So, world, meet Mother Day, and her companion, Father Night, both still coming to you on December 31.
The funniest thing is, there’s still another book out there called Father Night. But it’s not by Kurt Vonnegut, so I like my chances to compete. Or at least make it interesting.
Is there a moral to this story? Yes, I suppose there is: Google your book’s title before you plaster it all over the internet. Also, don’t obsess over it like I did. In the end, a rose by any other name smells as sweet.
Unless, perhaps, you call it a shitblossom. Now that’s a unique book title.
Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include eight books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.
You’ll notice some affiliate links in my posts. This means I earn a commission on sales made through those links, while you pay no additional cost. Just another way to support indie authors like me!