It may sound strange, but the whole reason i even went back and revised the manuscript of The Decadence Papers for potential publication was due to the death of Lou Reed.
On October 27, 2013, i first learned that Lou Reed had died from Facebook. I was stunned, not only by his death but also by how affected i was by it. I felt completely submerged in some strange cold sea. I didn't know him, not remotely, but my god, i spun his music every week in nightclubs for more than a decade of my life. I saw his face regularly on the t-shirts of my friends. I'd seen him live once, a birthday gift from a lover i lost touch with a decade ago now.
And in the days following Lou's death, the recollection of the novel bubbled up to the surface, as if his music had somehow soundtracked its writing, which i suppose you could make a decent case that it had, along with hundreds of other bands.
So that November, i reopened the file for the first time in, no lie, eight years, and i reread it. And i remembered how much i'd loved and hated those characters, how vital and vibrant their storylines were. And the more i reread it, the more i began to feel like i needed to whip it into shape, into something i wanted to share with others.
So RIP, Lou. Thanks for all your gloriously damaged music, for your tenacious ability to cling to this world no matter how far down life dragged you, and for the posthumous inspiration to keep at this book of mine.