Thanks JPM for the hot chapter, I was excited when I saw the new chapter on Nifty. I read it once last night and again this morning, good thing I took your advice and read it in private both times, lol. Keep up the great writing!!! Tony C.
read this on my phone at work, but yeah, in private would be okay too I suppose.
what were you trying to go with here? was it a 'Joe and Chris are in love (gross)' chapter, or a 'if Chris keeps saying he's not gay after this Joe's gonna make fun of him and set him off accidentally' chapter
or neither, I mean, that's just what I got from it
no no no, ha, I kid. honestly I enjoy reading 'Joe College' tons, I just felt like this chapter sits oddly next to the previous bunch? I wasn't being serious, I just wanted to poke around at your motivations a lil.
like, you know, I'm trying to get a sense of where everything's heading, and it can be tough. I still find Chris inscrutable most of the time.
besides, my favourite chapter was the GTA one, so, idk, I can't imagine my opinion could have that much to offer
I guess my sarcasm meter is/was defective. But whether you were close to parsing out my own intent shouldn't matter as much as how you think of it yourself. Sometimes people seem to read things into it that I don't intend, and it's awesome for me to see the different ways that people piece this together and what resonates with them as key themes and moments.
This chapter was an excellent birthday present! I can't wait to see where this goes next-although I happy to see that Joe and Chris appear to have found at least a moment of peace and togetherness.
Of course, this is through Joe's eyes, so there's no way to tell if that is really true (since he has demonstrated a distinct ability to construct an interesting viewpoint of what other people are thinking.)
@anon 6:25pm. I'd say Joe is in love, even if he can't express it directly-or any more directly than saying "I just want to go home with you" at the end of chapter 22, or his reaction to Chris' statement that 'the only one I like is you'. I'm not sure if he's ready to accept it, but I think he is actually in love. Whether Chris is in love, or just deeply fixated/infatuated on/with Joe is, of course, open to debate, unless we get an opportunity to hear from Chris again. As you say, Chris is more than a little inscrutable.
In any case, I myself do not think it's gross-it's bittersweet at best, because I have a inkling that Joe and Chris aren't likely to make it for the long haul-and that makes me a little sad. It' not like this story hasn't brought tears to my eyes before, but...sigh. And maybe I'm wrong-I can always hold out hope that two really special guys find a way to make it work.
The thing is, Joe has hinted a few times already that he and Chris won't last - most conspicuously, two chapters ago he said, "Chris is still the only guy I've been with who's taller than I am. When I remember how it felt with him, I understand why so many gay dudes have a preference for taller guys. He could feel so solid." It actually kind of sounds like they're not even friends anymore when you compare that passage to the way he reminisces about Matt ("Matt didn't talk about it until years later, when we both were out of college and drunk." - Ch 15). Whether or not they're still friends, the fact that we know it's going to end (whatever "it" is) really gives the last few chapters a sense of bittersweet nostalgia, even foreboding. Kind of like the way the story treats the whole college experience - the inevitability of the end of the good times, etc. It makes me wonder where this long-promised happy ending will come from. Or maybe the happy ending isn't a romantic "happily ever after" ending, but just Joe finally coming to terms with being gay and living life as an openly gay man with all the usual romantic travails - which is perhaps more true to life, anyway.
I predict that it is going to end badly between Chris and Joe with them being outed. With them two, I feel its close friends extremely infatuated with each other. I think Matt and Joe reconnect a while after Joe graduates and they finally admit how much they really love each other and how much they have in common.
Great story, read the whole thing in several days. Definitely got to end with Chris in the near future. It would be great if he ended up back with Andy, actually realizing how great he is and all. Joe B
There is going to be a world of hurt when it ends between them. They really do love each other - neither can actually say it (and even as a narrator, Joe doesn't) but it's not even necessary: 'You're so amazing'; 'I only want it because it's you'; 'They don't know that I only like you.' If jizzing into someone else's jizzed-in boxers isn't love, what is? They're closer than ever but it's been hinted too many times that the end is near.
(And just as a side note, I really hope they get caught by one of their roommates. Maybe I'm totally off on this but I've always been waiting for it to happen.)
Good stuff, JP, keep it up - chapter 25 can't come soon enough! The offer of a kickstarter to help you quit your day job and finish this epic still stands...
So here's how it ends. Joe, Matt and Chris go to the Twins, where Kevin Berger is scheduled for an arranged gay marriage to one of Walder Frey's sons. At the reception, Matt realizes that something has gone wrong when a Robyn cover of The Rains of Castamere starts to play. He's too late to stop the unfolding tragedy.
I am surprised that everyone has chosen this chapter to focus on the impending doom of Joe and Chris's relationship. I've felt that far more acutely in previous chapters. This chapter I have enjoyed the progress they've both made in their relationship. They both have come a long way. I guess that's what happens when you're in love. Thanks, JPM. Loved it.
Anonymous @ 6:30am, I agree with you Chris and Joe's progress they made in their relationship. I just feel that they are getting so comfortable with each other,that they are going to accidently out themselves, and since they have not come to terms with their sexuality or being out I think it will turn out bad between them once they are outed. Tony C.
I seriously loved this chapter! Although I kept thinking someone hacked into his account in order to out him, or that someone was about to walk in on them. I might have squeed when Joe thought 'I'm so gay', it totally sounded like an admission like he was resigned to accept the fact. Kudos
I really enjoyed this one. A bit of steam was fun. And Chris stayed the night!! That is really sweet. I think that everybody is fixated on the end of the relationship because there are all these hints that it doesn't work out. Joe always speaks about the entire relationship in the past tense and Chris seems like he is deeply closeted. He can't even admit 'interesting' is sexual attraction. So it feels like a crisis is coming. :-P Of course, this is all a story from JPM's mind. A great story. ;-)
Yes, when you get that Kickstart account set up let us know!
Loved the latest, but like the others I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. This story feels so true even if I went to Berkeley, not a large university in the Midwest.
Great chapter, although I liked the previous one even more.
One thing: whatever happened to Sam? Have I forgotten some plot development that took him out of the picture, or has he just sort of fallen out of Joe's life?
I think, as others have identified, it's clear Joe and Chris don't end up together, but I can't imagine how the breakup is going to happen. Fir one thing, people seem to be assuming we'll see it happen before the story ends, which is not something i'm taking for granted. However, if we do see a breakup, based on the story so far, I think it won't be a melodramatic 'big breakup' or suicide or outing (though I'd be surprised if someone doesn't discover what these guys are up to), because this story is anything but the usual 'steamy with lots of hospital visits' gay fiction fare. It will be more like Chris not being prepared to live as openly gay, and Joe not being able to deal with that (I assume Joe becomes able to deal with it quicker than Chris, though the twist could be that I'm wrong on that count), or them just moving to different cities, trying a long-distance relationship and it not really working. Something like that.
I may be led by wishful thinking, because those are the sorts of endings I'd much rather see. This whole story is both epic and governed by a sort of deflationary realism, but I only like that it's the former because it's also the latter, and sacrificing realism to the story's own epic-ness would be it eating itself, abandoning careful textural consistency to conform to a boring trope - I don't see JPM doing it. I could be wrong but I hope I'm not. As I say, we may not see the breakup at all, we may just get more allusions to it from the narrator and that's all. I wouldn't feel too cheated by that.
Bolaño's The Savage Detectives ends with one character disappearing, another having an anticlimactic encounter in a park with Octavio Paz, and some disappointing drawings being discovered, yet it's to me it seems a model ending. The conclusion's open-endedness fits the story, which feels like it has dipped into these people's lives at one point and then got out downstream. Their lives continue after the book ends; you've just seen part of them. A similar thing is going on here: it begins as one part of Joe's life is ending and you can feel the next waiting to start. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended quite like that, and maybe left what happens to Joe and Chris, post-college, unresolved.
All that said, I hope the ending is still a long way off. I'd be happy to read about Joe's whole life, however unlikely we are to get that. JPM, do you know how many chapters the final thing will have?
Sam is definitely 100% fully present! Maybe his relative absence stands out more because of how this updates. If you were reading it all consecutively, he'd be missing for three chapters and it wouldn't seem like a big deal, but because it publishes serially, it seems like he's gone for six months. I wanted to focus the last two chapters exclusively on gay stuff, with one solely involving Andy and the other solely involving Chris. Pretty much every character in the story will have a big moment (including one who was briefly mentioned in dialogue and has yet to actually appear) so don't worry about whether someone is "gone" or if something happened to them. There will be very clear answers.
I think there are probably 5-6 more chapters of college, and then maybe about 10 set afterward? Hard to say, exactly. Would like college graduation to happen in Chapter 33, but that might be drawing it out just to make a Dante parallel that probably no one would get (until now?). I'm trying to be efficient, but I tend to write more than I expect, so I can't give a firm number.
Yeah, a lot of that comment can be chalked up to my just reading the latest chapter and posting without looking around for evidence to back up my view. I now see, for instance, that you say you *do* tie up all loose ends by the end of the story, two posts ago on this blog.
I don't want to give the impression I'm demanding Sam back - if anything, it'd make sense if a character like him drifted away without Joe really registering it until much later on, because that's what sometimes happens at college and you can sense the story's, and Joe's, focus narrowing to Chris, to the exclusion of virtually anyone else. Not that I don't like Sam as a character - my memory of him back in the early chapters is of a character with Roger Sterling-quality lines.
I'm curious: when in the story's development did you know Joe was going to get with Chris in this way? Re-reading the first few chapters, Chris's entrance is more dramatic and significant than I remember, and there are signs that Joe falls for him almost immediately, which again I don't recall thinking when I first read it. I'd be interested to know how thoroughly you planned the structure and trajectory, and when you did so - I can't conceive of myself engaging in a project this vast, since I don't know how I'd begin to go about it.
One last thing: I sent you an e-mail on the 14th of March called Chapter 23, or at least I think I did. Did you get it? It was kind of long and rambling, so I don't mind you not replying, but I just wasn't sure you got it because it showed up oddly in my sent items.
The story was structured around Chris. The first time he shows up, I think the chapter ends with the implication that it was the first of many times that they'd spend the night together.
I believe that I received your e-mail. I used to be very, very diligent about responding but it became overwhelming. Unfortunately, it seems like the more thoughtful and detailed the e-mail, the tougher it is to respond, because I try to reply in kind, but doing that turns out to be time consuming -- kind of a side-project to this whole thing. I have a lot of partial, unsent drafts in my gmail, replying to very nice, long, personal notes. Sorry if it seems like I left you hanging, but I love and appreciate the feedback, and read every word multiple times.
Thanks JPM for the hot chapter, I was excited when I saw the new chapter on Nifty. I read it once last night and again this morning, good thing I took your advice and read it in private both times, lol. Keep up the great writing!!!
ReplyDeleteTony C.
Definitely a nice chapter to wake up to on a holiday.
ReplyDelete=)
read this on my phone at work, but yeah, in private would be okay too I suppose.
ReplyDeletewhat were you trying to go with here? was it a 'Joe and Chris are in love (gross)' chapter, or a 'if Chris keeps saying he's not gay after this Joe's gonna make fun of him and set him off accidentally' chapter
or neither, I mean, that's just what I got from it
Excellent! Someone's finally hate-reading and trolling me!
DeleteIt's only taken you five years!
DeleteFantastic chapter, first bit of action in a while - though really, I've not minded, your writing is fantastic enough without the jerk-off material.
no no no, ha, I kid. honestly I enjoy reading 'Joe College' tons, I just felt like this chapter sits oddly next to the previous bunch? I wasn't being serious, I just wanted to poke around at your motivations a lil.
Deletelike, you know, I'm trying to get a sense of where everything's heading, and it can be tough. I still find Chris inscrutable most of the time.
besides, my favourite chapter was the GTA one, so, idk, I can't imagine my opinion could have that much to offer
I guess my sarcasm meter is/was defective. But whether you were close to parsing out my own intent shouldn't matter as much as how you think of it yourself. Sometimes people seem to read things into it that I don't intend, and it's awesome for me to see the different ways that people piece this together and what resonates with them as key themes and moments.
DeleteThis chapter was an excellent birthday present! I can't wait to see where this goes next-although I happy to see that Joe and Chris appear to have found at least a moment of peace and togetherness.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is through Joe's eyes, so there's no way to tell if that is really true (since he has demonstrated a distinct ability to construct an interesting viewpoint of what other people are thinking.)
@anon 6:25pm. I'd say Joe is in love, even if he can't express it directly-or any more directly than saying "I just want to go home with you" at the end of chapter 22, or his reaction to Chris' statement that 'the only one I like is you'. I'm not sure if he's ready to accept it, but I think he is actually in love. Whether Chris is in love, or just deeply fixated/infatuated on/with Joe is, of course, open to debate, unless we get an opportunity to hear from Chris again. As you say, Chris is more than a little inscrutable.
In any case, I myself do not think it's gross-it's bittersweet at best, because I have a inkling that Joe and Chris aren't likely to make it for the long haul-and that makes me a little sad. It' not like this story hasn't brought tears to my eyes before, but...sigh. And maybe I'm wrong-I can always hold out hope that two really special guys find a way to make it work.
Awww...sneaking into your fuck buddy's room to jizz in his crusty old underwear. And they say romance is dead?
ReplyDeleteMan, I have the feeling that this Chris-Joe thing isn't going to end well. Chris seems like a walking time bomb.
The thing is, Joe has hinted a few times already that he and Chris won't last - most conspicuously, two chapters ago he said, "Chris is still the only guy I've been with who's taller than I am. When I remember how it felt with him, I understand why so many gay dudes have a preference for taller guys. He could feel so solid." It actually kind of sounds like they're not even friends anymore when you compare that passage to the way he reminisces about Matt ("Matt didn't talk about it until years later, when we both were out of college and drunk." - Ch 15). Whether or not they're still friends, the fact that we know it's going to end (whatever "it" is) really gives the last few chapters a sense of bittersweet nostalgia, even foreboding. Kind of like the way the story treats the whole college experience - the inevitability of the end of the good times, etc. It makes me wonder where this long-promised happy ending will come from. Or maybe the happy ending isn't a romantic "happily ever after" ending, but just Joe finally coming to terms with being gay and living life as an openly gay man with all the usual romantic travails - which is perhaps more true to life, anyway.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed for a transition to the present tense :)
DeleteI predict that it is going to end badly between Chris and Joe with them being outed. With them two, I feel its close friends extremely infatuated with each other. I think Matt and Joe reconnect a while after Joe graduates and they finally admit how much they really love each other and how much they have in common.
ReplyDeleteTony C.
Great story, read the whole thing in several days. Definitely got to end with Chris in the near future. It would be great if he ended up back with Andy, actually realizing how great he is and all. Joe B
ReplyDeleteThere is going to be a world of hurt when it ends between them. They really do love each other - neither can actually say it (and even as a narrator, Joe doesn't) but it's not even necessary: 'You're so amazing'; 'I only want it because it's you'; 'They don't know that I only like you.' If jizzing into someone else's jizzed-in boxers isn't love, what is? They're closer than ever but it's been hinted too many times that the end is near.
ReplyDelete(And just as a side note, I really hope they get caught by one of their roommates. Maybe I'm totally off on this but I've always been waiting for it to happen.)
Good stuff, JP, keep it up - chapter 25 can't come soon enough! The offer of a kickstarter to help you quit your day job and finish this epic still stands...
So here's how it ends. Joe, Matt and Chris go to the Twins, where Kevin Berger is scheduled for an arranged gay marriage to one of Walder Frey's sons. At the reception, Matt realizes that something has gone wrong when a Robyn cover of The Rains of Castamere starts to play. He's too late to stop the unfolding tragedy.
ReplyDeleteAndy Trafford was a Lannister all along.
I'm guessing I won't fully get the joke as I haven't seen Sunday's episodes, but really? Andy as a Lannister? Friggin for real?
DeleteYou crazy for this one, JPM
That's why the twist is so shocking!
DeleteHey JPM, Maybe Chris and Tyrion Lannister can mess around, I hear he has a big one considering he is an Imp.
ReplyDeleteTony C.
I think that he'd consider Tyrion more of an intimidating, yet compelling, party guest.
DeleteI am surprised that everyone has chosen this chapter to focus on the impending doom of Joe and Chris's relationship. I've felt that far more acutely in previous chapters. This chapter I have enjoyed the progress they've both made in their relationship. They both have come a long way. I guess that's what happens when you're in love. Thanks, JPM. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @ 6:30am, I agree with you Chris and Joe's progress they made in their relationship. I just feel that they are getting so comfortable with each other,that they are going to accidently out themselves, and since they have not come to terms with their sexuality or being out I think it will turn out bad between them once they are outed.
ReplyDeleteTony C.
I seriously loved this chapter! Although I kept thinking someone hacked into his account in order to out him, or that someone was about to walk in on them.
ReplyDeleteI might have squeed when Joe thought 'I'm so gay', it totally sounded like an admission like he was resigned to accept the fact.
Kudos
I really enjoyed this one. A bit of steam was fun. And Chris stayed the night!! That is really sweet. I think that everybody is fixated on the end of the relationship because there are all these hints that it doesn't work out. Joe always speaks about the entire relationship in the past tense and Chris seems like he is deeply closeted. He can't even admit 'interesting' is sexual attraction. So it feels like a crisis is coming. :-P Of course, this is all a story from JPM's mind. A great story. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI wish I could hire you full time to write these chapters. The months of waiting are torture. These stories just feel so f'ing real.
ReplyDeleteYes, when you get that Kickstart account set up let us know!
ReplyDeleteLoved the latest, but like the others I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. This story feels so true even if I went to Berkeley, not a large university in the Midwest.
AB
Great chapter, although I liked the previous one even more.
ReplyDeleteOne thing: whatever happened to Sam? Have I forgotten some plot development that took him out of the picture, or has he just sort of fallen out of Joe's life?
I think, as others have identified, it's clear Joe and Chris don't end up together, but I can't imagine how the breakup is going to happen. Fir one thing, people seem to be assuming we'll see it happen before the story ends, which is not something i'm taking for granted. However, if we do see a breakup, based on the story so far, I think it won't be a melodramatic 'big breakup' or suicide or outing (though I'd be surprised if someone doesn't discover what these guys are up to), because this story is anything but the usual 'steamy with lots of hospital visits' gay fiction fare. It will be more like Chris not being prepared to live as openly gay, and Joe not being able to deal with that (I assume Joe becomes able to deal with it quicker than Chris, though the twist could be that I'm wrong on that count), or them just moving to different cities, trying a long-distance relationship and it not really working. Something like that.
I may be led by wishful thinking, because those are the sorts of endings I'd much rather see. This whole story is both epic and governed by a sort of deflationary realism, but I only like that it's the former because it's also the latter, and sacrificing realism to the story's own epic-ness would be it eating itself, abandoning careful textural consistency to conform to a boring trope - I don't see JPM doing it. I could be wrong but I hope I'm not. As I say, we may not see the breakup at all, we may just get more allusions to it from the narrator and that's all. I wouldn't feel too cheated by that.
Bolaño's The Savage Detectives ends with one character disappearing, another having an anticlimactic encounter in a park with Octavio Paz, and some disappointing drawings being discovered, yet it's to me it seems a model ending. The conclusion's open-endedness fits the story, which feels like it has dipped into these people's lives at one point and then got out downstream. Their lives continue after the book ends; you've just seen part of them. A similar thing is going on here: it begins as one part of Joe's life is ending and you can feel the next waiting to start. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended quite like that, and maybe left what happens to Joe and Chris, post-college, unresolved.
All that said, I hope the ending is still a long way off. I'd be happy to read about Joe's whole life, however unlikely we are to get that. JPM, do you know how many chapters the final thing will have?
Sam is definitely 100% fully present! Maybe his relative absence stands out more because of how this updates. If you were reading it all consecutively, he'd be missing for three chapters and it wouldn't seem like a big deal, but because it publishes serially, it seems like he's gone for six months. I wanted to focus the last two chapters exclusively on gay stuff, with one solely involving Andy and the other solely involving Chris. Pretty much every character in the story will have a big moment (including one who was briefly mentioned in dialogue and has yet to actually appear) so don't worry about whether someone is "gone" or if something happened to them. There will be very clear answers.
DeleteI think there are probably 5-6 more chapters of college, and then maybe about 10 set afterward? Hard to say, exactly. Would like college graduation to happen in Chapter 33, but that might be drawing it out just to make a Dante parallel that probably no one would get (until now?). I'm trying to be efficient, but I tend to write more than I expect, so I can't give a firm number.
Yeah, a lot of that comment can be chalked up to my just reading the latest chapter and posting without looking around for evidence to back up my view. I now see, for instance, that you say you *do* tie up all loose ends by the end of the story, two posts ago on this blog.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to give the impression I'm demanding Sam back - if anything, it'd make sense if a character like him drifted away without Joe really registering it until much later on, because that's what sometimes happens at college and you can sense the story's, and Joe's, focus narrowing to Chris, to the exclusion of virtually anyone else. Not that I don't like Sam as a character - my memory of him back in the early chapters is of a character with Roger Sterling-quality lines.
I'm curious: when in the story's development did you know Joe was going to get with Chris in this way? Re-reading the first few chapters, Chris's entrance is more dramatic and significant than I remember, and there are signs that Joe falls for him almost immediately, which again I don't recall thinking when I first read it. I'd be interested to know how thoroughly you planned the structure and trajectory, and when you did so - I can't conceive of myself engaging in a project this vast, since I don't know how I'd begin to go about it.
One last thing: I sent you an e-mail on the 14th of March called Chapter 23, or at least I think I did. Did you get it? It was kind of long and rambling, so I don't mind you not replying, but I just wasn't sure you got it because it showed up oddly in my sent items.
Ha, love the Sam/Roger Sterling comparison.
DeleteThe story was structured around Chris. The first time he shows up, I think the chapter ends with the implication that it was the first of many times that they'd spend the night together.
I believe that I received your e-mail. I used to be very, very diligent about responding but it became overwhelming. Unfortunately, it seems like the more thoughtful and detailed the e-mail, the tougher it is to respond, because I try to reply in kind, but doing that turns out to be time consuming -- kind of a side-project to this whole thing. I have a lot of partial, unsent drafts in my gmail, replying to very nice, long, personal notes. Sorry if it seems like I left you hanging, but I love and appreciate the feedback, and read every word multiple times.