Isla | Chapter Notes
Musings about each chapter — Warning: May Contain Spoilers
ISLA is a serialized novel written by
with new chapters added weekly.ISLA : Pop fresh batteries into your Walkman and follow twelve-year-old George Perez to the Yucatán coast, where faded myths hum beneath the surface and nothing stays buried for long. With each step, he’s drawn deeper into a story that might rewrite everything he thought he knew.
Warning: May contain spoilers.
Before
Like many of my stories, this one took a while to gestate.
ISLA was conceived, in part, during a trip to the Yucatán in 2012. Under the shade of a palapa I drafted the rough story in my travel notebook. When I got home I transcribed my ideas into a file (or app) which, regrettably, now seems lost to time. So, for over a decade, the story has lived somewhere between the digital ephemera and the images in my head.
But the idea—the spine of it, at least—was never far from my mind. Every few months, I’d poke around, doing a little research, until a few months back when I finally dove in. What you’re reading isn’t a first draft, or even the third. For some chapters, it might be the tenth. A few were pulled apart, mashed together, run through the mental blender, and came out as something entirely different. Call it a “writer’s want,” like a chef-in-training assembling a meal from the better leftovers.
These Chapter Notes won’t be a compendium of all the turns a novel takes to reach a reader’s eyes… egad, who would want that? But where it makes sense, I’ll refer back to notes or recollections from the story’s creation.
As a side note: I keep all my journals, and just this morning (March 30th, 2025) I pulled out the one from that 2012 trip. After dusting it off, I could barely recognize my own handwriting, let alone the version of the story on the page. I like to think the time between sipping Don Julio and scribbling those sun-dodging thoughts and the version you’re reading now has aged the story the right way—a slow, lasting pour of 1942 in words.
-j.
Chapter One | “Snakes, Jolt and the City"
Where to start a story is always a gamble. Do you dip a toe in the primordial ooze of Gondwana, or much later, where the action heats up? Most stories drop you straight into the fray. It’s called “in medias res” or “in the midst of things.” I prefer this approach in my short stories, where you pick up the backstory like grabbing snacks on a road trip—always moving forward with only quick stops for essentials.
But I kept questioning it with this story. Like a lot. In the weeks before publishing things kept shifting things around (some still are). I really hadn’t considered rolling out this story in a serial form and I’m unsure if bouncing through time will confuse people. To combat that I’ve made a few modifications to my original story that should help ease that cognitive burden. After a few chapters you can tell me if it worked. But this beginning, the one with the hissing snakes where George is listening to Kathryn argue with the fella, was always how I started the story and any last minute headfake of doing it differently was just a fever dream. (sorry pre-readers)
The tick-tock of it all aside, we’re meeting George for the first time but a lot has happened prior. He and his mother Kathryn are living in Chicago and, well, things aren’t working out. Again. Here we get a view of George’s world where bedrooms are a sanctuary but there’s a lot going on in his head, but only a little bit of life outside of it. We get some inklings about George’s artwork and the magical nature it takes on when the light hits just right. When you’re twelve, I think that happens a lot, probably more than it does later in life. I also think there’s something about being an only child and/or being tossed around with life that makes you grow up a bit faster, even while trying to hold onto the elusiveness of childhood.
Throughout, we’ll be hearing the soundtrack of George’s world. It’s a mad mix of eclectic 70s and early 80s music. Some of the tracks you might recognize, others I hope are a surprise. Music plays a significant role for George and how he sees the world. Links to music that are referenced, overt or obliquely, are noted below each chapter. You can also keep up with the playlist on Spotify.
Oh, and there’s a journal… and map. Definitely more about that later.
Chapter Two | “The Ticking Begins”
Moving day has come, quickly. Kathryn doesn’t seem to be much for hanging around and she’s pulled the ripcord. George knows this about her so he’s not entirely suprised. Bus rides to the airport on a cold morning are sort of a lonely affair—perhaps not quite as desperate looking as just about any flight leaving Las Vegas, though.
As George draws on the glass, some part of his inner world spills out through his fingertips in real time—the plane he sketches is going down, a tiny "HELP" scrawled in the window, as if searching for a way out. I think of it like a weep hole in carpentry—those tiny gaps built into window sills to let the rain escape. His fingers, his drawings, are just that: a quiet outlet, a necessary release for what can’t be held inside.
And there's a ticking feeling beneath it all, a quiet urgency he can’t shake.
For those of you fretting that we’re now two chapters in and things haven’t ramped up yet, just hold tight a bit longer. The sweet isn’t so sweet without the sour.
Chapter Three | “Voice of Legends”
This is our first time jump of the story, back to 1983. I don't know how much people pay attention to that time marker but we’ll see if it causes confusion.
And this is our first time seeing George's father in his element. We get a pretty good view of the ebb of his live. And, of course, Kathryn who’s in a very different place than we’ve seen her so far.
Let’s talk about George’s father for a minute. I don’t channel people often, in real life or in writing. I mean, there was a short while, maybe 3 or 4 days when I was a kid where I borrowed a pair of khakis and wore a white shirt to look like some cholos in my neighborhood. But, that was because of a girl. Anywhew… The first half of this chapter is an homage to my buddy
. Many of his posts about music could be written by George's father (or, perhaps the other way around) with their fiery, musical insight pointed at listeners with both barrels. As an aside to this aside: I looked through our text messages and thought I’d made mention of channeling him while writing this but, alas, this is the first he’ll hear about it. Also, Jason, you’re welcome.George’s father’s radio broadcast, I imagine, is as much a part of his on-campus personality as his classes. In the vein of one of those larger-than-life teachers who always seem to occupy a humanities course where people rush to sign up.
The car ride home is a different story, perhaps the more subdued flip side of the record—if there’s an apt analogy. I never named the college/university but in my mind it’s UC Berkeley. And, I can imagine how, even as progressive as that school has been, it must have been swayed by the predictions of John Naisbitt. His book, Megatrends, would have been anathema to people like George’s father where the future looked backward less often, toward history or mythology, and more toward an Information Age. It’s, perhaps, worth noting here that Naisbitt’s theories came mostly true. There are some wonderful summaries available if you’re in the mood (link, link).
Also embedded in the car ride home is a brief moment with Kathryn. We get to see her directly, hear a few of her thoughts and memories. Not one to shy from challenging her partner she’s also more moderated, reflective. We’ll hear more about Kathryn later so I’ll leave it at that.
George, for his part in both sections, is taking it all in. We are experiencing the world through his eyes while peeking in just a bit at his thoughts. He feels something coming but, like a kid, senses it in more grand ways: moving. Those tectonic shifts, the ones that don’t have visible volcanic activity are much harder to understand but they’re definitely felt.
But, he’s left with something to look forward to: a story from the vault.
Chapter Four | “The Bedtime Story”
Remember in the first note where I mentioned trying out a different orientation of chapters? Yeah, I debated a lot about starting with this one. Again, apologies to early readers who gave great notes but it just didn’t feel right to jump to this without seeing the rest of the world first. And, truly, even still in serializing all of this, it still feels like a gamble to leave it to later.
Suffice to say, the bedtime story is the launchpad. It’s the start of the avalanche. The Big Bang for George. In the same way those wild stories our family or friends told us when we were young, this one will stick.
In it we’re treated to a first-hand account of an adventure by George’s father… down, down, down into the cave. with glowing bats. and fierce creatures. and, and…
…and that’s all I’m going to say about this chapter, for now.
Chapter Five | “Pez Doblado”
Every kid has a night so enchanted by the things you’re making that you hope your parents will forget to tell you to go to bed, right? I know I did. Drawing, models (my room sometimes smelled like a gas station), or even writing. Oh pleeeeeease, just five more minutes?
George is in that state of mind when he’s hot on the trail of pulling at the threads of his father’s story. If only he could sink into the carpet he’d be invisible. Unfortunately, something else transpires that interrupts both the map making and his life.
I wrestled a lot with the timing of this sequence. If you know none of his other tracks, you’ve heard some rendition of Hallelujah. But it’s a dead giveaway (pun intended) unless you creep up on the idea that it’s playing and shift the focus to a moment of exhiliration. I hope that I've done that here. You tell me.
As with all things fiction, some artistic license taken but, perhaps, not a far stretch. Cohen’s album Various Positions came out in 1984, but probably safe to say it was being circulated to record stations by the end of 1983. Maybe I didn’t need to add the “for radio station use only” sticker as it feels like, well, an add-on but I kinda like the backstory it gives the record, too. Incidentally, Hallelujah is a killer way to start the second side of the record. Just a few years later, and a different label, it would have either been track 1 or 9 on the CD.
In case you’re wondering, my favorite version Hallelujah is by Jeff Buckley
Chapter Six | “Patterns, Part 1”
We’re finally at the airport. I know, I know. Because this is a serialized version of the story there’s a natural tendency to move with speed and take things to the N’th degree right away… trust me, I feel it, too. But, like in my favorite 70’s-80’s movies I wanted there to be more of a build up first. I hope the wait hasn’t been too long because, you’re going to have to wait just a bit longer for the explosion you just know is coming.
There’s a lot to unpack in this chapter as the radiator in George is starting to boil over. That pressure has been building and now we see it escaping via music. In this case it’s the repeating pattern of the carpet and the sound of New Order’s Blue Monday. As I was scouring for the right feel many moons ago, I happened across an episode of Song Exploder—one I’d missed. I’ve probably listened to the New Order track a dozen times over the years but hearing the stems of the recording unveils a very different set of highlights to listen for in the mix.
Like most things I write I tried to think through this in a cinematic way where we’re moving in and out of George’s mind, pretty quickly in some cases, and to the surroundings (real or imagined). I think I’ve said this before, maybe in Notes, that George and I share the same proclivity for imagining things and the spilling of his drink that creates the hole in the table, the carpet, is something I would definitely have done in that moment. Oh, and New Coke was a fucking travesty, so, maybe it’s not crazy to think he could have been looking down at the baggage handling system had he dumped it on his ticket.
And now, George has set off through the crowd at the airport. He’s got an idea, sort of, about what’s going to happen next…
Chapter Seven | “Juxtaposition”
The root of all things George, so far, are from these moments with his father. In this case, a lesson how music and myth are intertwined. This chapter might have the most overt musical references than any other. And, so many of them are great that I had to pare back which would be part of the ongoing playlist. I opted for fewer than I could, slimming down to the essential ones.
Of the music George’s father talks about I can honestly say I had to do some serious research. I think it’s well-known that Led Zeppelin lyrics are full of Tolkien references but I hadn’t really thought much about, or listened to, Marillion. Clocking in over 17 minutes (!!), Grendel is a hard listen if the style isn’t your thing (see my other thoughts about prog rock here). And, only after listening with my oldest son did I happen upon how Jackie Paper might be the actual villain in Peter, Paul and Mary’s mega hit Puff, The Magic Dragon.
A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant's rings make way for other toys
One gray night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roarHis head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane
Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave
So Puff, that mighty dragon, sadly slipped into his cave
In any case, this chapter is a bit of an origin story for Blue Monday in George’s pantheon of musical influences. And, while it’s that, I hope you catch that it, also, waters the seeds of how George views mythology in music and his introduction to how music and lyrics can juxtapose each other.
Chapter Eight | “Patterns, Part 2”
… coming April 29th.