Joshua Mohr

With vulnerability, grit, and hard-earned humor, Mohr returns with a harrowing and personal chronicle of substance abuse and relapse.

Sirens

Thirty-year-old Rhonda seeks a fresh start in the streets of San Francisco's Mission District after being abused as a child and receiving therapy for depersonalization.

A Novel

Some Things that Meant the World to Me

The intimate, gorgeous, garish confessions of Joshua Mohr—writer, father, alcoholic, addict Her teeth marks in the wood are some of my favorite things. Every now and again she rips the pick out of my hand and tosses it inside the guitar . . . I hold it over my head, hole down, shaking it back and forth, the pick rattling around in there. And as it ricochets from side to side, I always think about pills. Maybe the pick has turned into oxy. Or Norco, codeine, Demerol. Maybe it’s a pill and when it falls out I can gobble it up. After years of hard-won sobriety, while rebuilding a life with his wife and young daughter, Joshua Mohr suffers a stroke at the age of thirty-five—his third, it turns out—which uncovers a heart condition requiring surgery. And fentanyl, one of his myriad drugs of choice. This forced “freelapse” should fix his heart, but what will it do to his sobriety? And what if it doesn’t work? Told in stunning, surreal, time-hopping vignettes, Model Citizen is a raw, revealing portrait of an addict. Mohr shines a harsh spotlight into all corners of his life, throwing the wild joys, tragedies, embarrassments, and adventures of his past into bold relief. His story is heartbreakingly real and yet unreal, which he captures in vivid, uncanny imagery, waking hallucinations that imagine hearts as hot air balloons, drug cravings as wry Nazi doctors, secrets as emaciated second selves. And yet Mohr’s memoir pulses with humanity and humor, capturing the immediacy of an addict climbing out of the dark pit of his past, learning to love and be loved, while never letting go of those experiences that shaped him and broke him. A darkly beautiful, funny, incisive confession, Model Citizen is brimming with hope and resilience, drawing the universal and human out of every moment.

A Memoir

Model Citizen

With a wide cast of characters and an exciting pace that mimics the speed of our modern, all-too-connected lives, All This Life examines the dangerous intersection of reality and the imaginary, where coding and technology seek to highlight and augment our already flawed human connections. Morning rush hour on the Golden Gate Bridge. Amidst the river of metal and glass a shocking event occurs, leaving those who witnessed it desperately looking for answers, most notably one man and his son Jake, who captured the event and uploaded it to the internet for all the world to experience. As the media swarms over the story, Jake will face the ramifications of his actions as he learns the perils of our modern disconnect between the real world and the world we create on line. In land-locked Arizona, as the entire country learns of the event, Sara views Jake’s video just before witnessing a horrible event of her own: her boyfriend’s posting of their intimate sex tape. As word of the tape leaks out, making her an instant pariah, Sara needs to escape the small town’s persecution of her careless action. Along with Rodney, an old boyfriend injured long ago in a freak accident that destroyed his parents’ marriage, she must run faster than the internet trolls seeking to punish her for her indiscretions. Sara and Rodney will reunite with his estranged mother, Kat, now in danger from a new man in her life who may not be who he--or his online profiles--claim to be, a dangerous avatar in human form. Using his trademark talent for creating memorable characters, with a deep insight into language and how it can be twisted to alter reality, Joshua Mohr returns with his most contemporary and insightful novel yet.

All This Life

"Mothr's prose roams with chimerical liquidity." Boston's Weekly Dig --

Termite Parade

When his bicycle is intentionally run off the road by a neighbor's SUV, something snaps in Bob Coffin. Modern suburban life has been getting him down and this is the last straw. To avoid following in his own father's missteps, Bob is suddenly desperate to reconnect with his wife and his distant, distracted children. And he's looking for any guidance he can get.

a novel

Fight Song

The passions, frustrations, and quirks of the patrons of Damascus, a dive bar in San Francisco's Mission District, come tumbling into the open when the bar's proprietor Owen decides to host an unconventional art show.

Damascus

A mature second novel from the best-selling author of Some Things That Meant the World to Me.

The intimate, gorgeous, garish confessions of Joshua Mohr—writer, father, alcoholic, addict. Her teeth marks in the wood are some of my favorite things. Every now and again she rips the pick out of my hand and tosses it inside the guitar . . . I hold it over my head, hole down, shaking it back and forth, the pick rattling around in there. And as it ricochets from side to side, I always think about pills. Maybe the pick has turned into oxy. Or Norco, codeine, Demerol. Maybe it’s a pill and when it falls out I can gobble it up. After years of hard-won sobriety, while rebuilding a life with his wife and young daughter, thirty-five-year-old Joshua Mohr suffers a stroke—his third, it turns out—which uncovers a heart condition requiring surgery. Which requires fentanyl, one of his myriad drugs of choice. This forced “freelapse” should fix his heart, but what will it do to his sobriety? And what if it doesn’t work? Told in stunning, surreal, time-hopping vignettes, Model Citizen is a raw, revealing portrait of an addict. Mohr shines a harsh spotlight into all corners of his life, throwing the wild joys, tragedies, embarrassments, and adventures of his past into bold relief. Pulsing with humanity and humor, revealing the immediacy of an addict climbing out of the murky pit of his past, Model Citizen is a darkly beautiful, incisive confession.

“A Generation X call-to-arms about facing mid-life on our own terms with the unique heart that beats inside us all . . . Poignant, honest, and funny as hell.” —The Huffington Post When his bicycle is intentionally run off the road by a neighbor’s SUV, something snaps in Bob Coffin. Modern suburban life has been getting him down and this is the last straw. To avoid following in his own father’s missteps, Bob is suddenly desperate to reconnect with his wife and his distant, distracted children. And he’s looking for any guidance he can get. Bob soon learns that the wisest words come from the most unexpected places, from characters that are always more than what they appear to be: a magician/marriage counselor, a fast-food drive-thru attendant/phone-sex operator, and a janitor/guitarist of a French KISS cover band. Can these disparate voices inspire Bob to fight for his family? To fight for his place in the world? A call-to-arms for those who have ever felt beaten down by life, Fight Song is a quest for happiness in a world in which we are increasingly losing control. It is an exciting novel by one of the most surprising and original writers of his generation. "A whimsical, madcap, delightfully depraved fable for our age.” —Jonathan Evison, New York Times bestselling author "For its irreverent beat, relentless energy, and sharp, funny characters, Fight Song may as well be titled 'Battle Cry.'" —The Rumpus “Mohr . . . brings a dollop of David Sedaris–like humor to the pathos . . . It’s a surprisingly sweet, rollicking tribute to anyone who’s ever needed a fight song to fight back.” —Booklist

Joshua Mohr

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