Take Five: Matthew Norman and Charm City Rocks

We’re delighted to bring you a closer look at WU contributor Matthew Norman’s newest release, Charm City Rocks. If you’ve read anything from Matt, you already know that he’ll swiftly have you nodding, laughing, and ultimately moved, which makes us so excited for this one. What’s the pitch? “When a single dad meets the former rock-star crush of his youth, everything they thought they knew about happiness and love is thrown into chaos in this hopeful, heartwarming romantic comedy.”

“Bursting with heart and chock-full of pitch-perfect dialog and disarmingly wonderful characters.”–Allison Winn Scotch

If you aren’t sold yet, just read on.

Q1: What’s the premise of your new book?

MN: CHARM CITY ROCKS is the story of Margot Hammer and Billy Perkins. Margot is the former drummer of an all-female rock band from the early 2000s called Burnt Flowers. Billy is a piano teacher in Baltimore. One day while watching a rock documentary on Netflix, Billy confesses to his teenage son Caleb that he used to have a huge crush on Margot back in the day. Later that night, Caleb accidentally gets stoned on pot gummies and comes up with an idea to get Margot to come to Baltimore to perform at a record shop called Charm City Rocks. As truly idiotic as Caleb’s plan seems, Margot’s former record label sees it as her potential rock-and-roll comeback. From there…romantic comedy ensues.

Q2: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

MN: I wasn’t kidding about the “romantic comedy” thing. Of my five novels, CHARM CITY ROCKS is the first that can be considered a true romantic comedy. There’s a strain of melancholy that has run steadily through my previous books—a sort of bitter-sweet sensibility that has always been a go-to aesthetic for me as writer. When I stumbled onto the idea for CHARM CITY ROCKS, this is how I pitched it to my editor: “What if I took the bitter part out and just wrote something, you know, sweet?” I couldn’t be happier with the results. I think it’s my lightest, airiest book, and I hope it’s my funniest. Either way, it’s definitely the most fun I’ve had writing a novel.

Q3: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

MN: All things equal, Margot and Billy would meet, hit it off, go on a date, and see where things went. All things here, however, are not equal. Although she’s become a bit of a rock and roll recluse these last two decades, Margot is very famous, and Billy is just a normal guy from Baltimore. As Margot and Billy’s relationship begins to bloom, the world takes notice, and so do some key characters from Margot’s rockstar past—like her former bandmates and an ex-husband who’s even more famous than she is. Relationships are fragile in the early stages—particularly when both parties show up with some baggage. Can Margot and Billy’s tentative new relationship withstand the weight of a couple million eyeballs? We’ll see.

Q4: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

MN: I mentioned before that this was the most fun I’ve had writing a book. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t difficult. From beginning to end there was a push and pull between the past and present. I needed to create a fictional rock band, give that rock band a run of songs, albums, awards, concerts, and memorable performances, and then I needed to break that band up in spectacular fashion. It was important to me, though, to not let Burnt Flowers’ musical backstory overpower the book’s present action. I love fictional and nonfictional rock retrospectives as much as anyone, but that’s not what I was looking to write. CHARM CITY ROCKS is in the present tense, and it’s very much about Margot and Billy in the present.

Q5: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

MN: Genre is important, and I don’t think it should be taken lightly. If you call something a romantic comedy but then don’t actually deliver a romantic comedy, readers will rightfully be annoyed and confused. So, I’m proud that CHARM CITY ROCKS meets the specs of the genre. I’m equally proud, however, that it also pushes beyond those specs. Margot and Billy’s romance is the book’s “A” storyline, for sure, but it’s also about the validity of nontraditional families, the love between parents and their children, the ever-changing entertainment industry, the flipping of traditional male-female power dynamics, and the sheer joy of second acts and second chances.

Thank you, Matt! You can find out more about Charm City Rocks on Matthew’s website. Or follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between Kathleen Bolton and Therese Walsh in 2006. Since then, the site has grown to include ~50 regular contributors and a variety of guests on rotation throughout a given year.

In 2016, the Writer Unboxed team published a book with Writer’s Digest / Random House. AUTHOR IN PROGRESS: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published is a comprehensive guide focused on helping writers over/around/through hurdles faced at every stage of the novel-writing process. It’s received some ***** reviews; we hope you’ll check it out.

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