Jon Bassoff doesn’t romanticize writing. For the Longmont-based novelist, crafting a work of fiction is a battle where the author must “grab an axe and show the story who’s boss.”
“All writing is a chore,” Bassoff continues. “I love finishing a book, but writing is painful. You’re starting with nothing. The page is blank and you’re trying to will ideas into the world. I wish I was one of those people who inspiration hits and I could sit there writing beautiful stories for hours, but that’s not who I am.”
That sense of struggle permeates his latest novel, The Memory Ward, arriving in bookstores March 4 via Blackstone Publishing. In this psychological thriller, postal worker Hank Davies starts to notice cracks in his Nevada town. His neighbors are too perfect, the letters he delivers are blank, and a mysterious woman urges him to peel back his wallpaper to uncover hidden truths.
"I just get images in my head, and the one that inspired this story was peeling back wallpaper and finding something behind it," Bassoff says. “I've always been fascinated with stories within stories, and this is one. At one point, there is literally a story within a story within a story.”
With influences ranging from The Truman Show to Blue Velvet, Bassoff’s novel wrestles with the slippery nature of identity by looking beneath the shiny surface of suburban life. The Longmont-based author is prolific, with this release marking his 10th novel in just over a decade, spanning crime, gothic and horror genres.
“I experiment with a lot of the same themes: mental illness, violence and memory,” Bassoff says. “Those are pretty obvious in this one, but a lot of my stuff plays with what happens if you can’t trust your memories. That’s frightening because we are shaped by our past, so if you start to doubt your memories, you begin to doubt who you are.”
The double life of Jon Bassoff
Though Bassoff has carved out a place for himself in the world of fiction, his day-to-day life revolves around the classroom. He’s been teaching English for nearly two decades, spending the last 10 years at Longmont High School and the previous nine at Frederick High School. His students know him as “the deranged writer guy,” a title he wears with pride.
“Some kids could care less,” he admits, “but others think it’s cool that their teacher is a writer. When I started teaching, I actually wrote under a pen name and then decided to shift to writing under my name. My mom was like, ‘That's a terrible idea. The books you write will get you in trouble,’ but after all these years, I’ve had no complaints.”
Originally from New York City, Bassoff grew up in Boulder and lived in Oregon and New York before settling in Longmont with his wife in 2001. He appreciates the city’s community feel, even if its tidy suburban facade occasionally sparks ideas about lurking darkness.
“There’s stuff that seems idyllic here, but when you start to get to know people, you see that everyone has their own darkness,” Bassoff says. “That said, I love Longmont. After meeting my wife in New York, who was originally from Colorado, we decided to settle here because Longmont felt like home.”
Teaching in the area provides him with just enough structure to balance his writing. "We get our summers off and I'm teaching English, so I'm always kind of in that mindset," he explains. "But juggling a full-time job, a family and trying to write is difficult. I've never had a daily routine because it always depends on how much grading I have or what's going on with my kids."
Local literary launch
While balancing teaching and writing presents its challenges, The Memory Ward is now ready to meet the world. To celebrate its release, Bassoff will be hosting several book events throughout Colorado this month, including stops at Boulder Bookstore, Bricks on Main in Longmont and Tattered Cover in Denver.
The book launch events will include artwork by his students based on a synopsis of the novel and its themes. “These are super talented artists, so I asked them to come up with something inspired by the book,” Bassoff says. “It's fun to connect students with what you're doing and bring them into your work.”
Beyond book signings, Bassoff’s career is expanding in other ways. Two of his previous works, The Drive-Thru Crematorium and The Disassembled Man, are being adapted into films. He’s also working on new manuscripts, including a supernatural thriller inspired by Jewish mythology, a “weird dystopian tale” à la 1984 and a novel exploring mass hysteria.
“I actually finished The Memory Ward three years ago,” Bassoff says. “The funny thing about publishing is that it takes so long I've finished multiple books. We’ll see which one, if any, comes out next.”
Despite his expanding literary footprint, Bassoff remains focused on the most rewarding aspect of the process: reader engagement. For Bassoff, leaving us questioning reality is the ultimate success. ,
“As a writer, you need to know exactly what happened in your story,” he says. “If you don’t, you didn’t do your job. But I did want this to be something where the reader could come up with their own conclusions. Who’s sane and who’s not? What’s actually behind the wallpaper?”
ON THE PAGE: The Memory Ward book launch events with Jon Bassoff. 6:30-7:30 p.m. Friday, March 7, Boulder Bookstore, 1107 Pearl St. | 6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 13, Bricks on Main, 471 Main St., Longmont | 6-7 p.m. Friday, March 28, Tattered Cover, 2526 E. Colfax Ave., Denver.