The dating world is a place of many ups, downs and in-betweens. One University graduate aims to offer a satirical, yet realistic, take on the experience by publishing a book.
2003 College of Business graduate R.J. Hamilton’s novella “Memoirs of a Serial Bachelor” will be available in retailers in mid/late August and online retailers in mid/late September. It is being distributed by Lulu Publishing in the United States and Europe.
Hamilton, writing under the pseudonym “Joe Boxer” (taken from his real name and a Subaru car engine), worked his day job while devoting his free time to writing the novella, which is a fictional first-person account of a man (also called “Joe Boxer”) and his trials with the opposite sex.
Hamilton said the idea for the book came as he was browsing online book retailers while experiencing a difficult romantic relationship.
“There weren’t a whole lot of genuine books about the male persona in terms of the dating/sex/relationship life,” Hamilton said. “There was always something over the top, but nothing that I would have considered to be real.”
Hamilton said he spent about five months on the first draft, and Erin Wilson, a peer editor, said Hamilton spent nearly a year on the book altogether.
Wilson believes one of the reasons Hamilton selected her to edit the book was to receive a female perspective.
“He tried to bring a different sort of readership to the book,” Wilson said.
Wilson added that while Hamilton drew very loosely on a few of his own experiences, like any author, he used his imagination “quite liberally” to make the book more interesting and relatable.
His work is relating to a number of male and female fans, as excerpts can be found on Facebook and Twitter under his pseudonym “Joe Boxer” and “_jb_”, respectively.
Daniel Wurz, an academic adviser at San Diego State University, is an avid fan of Hamilton’s “satirical” and “hilarious” writing style on the male experience.
“[Hamilton] sees it from the comical perspective,” Wurz said. “[He has] a way with words that paint a picture in my head.”
The book can be explicit in detail when concerning the emotional and physical aspects of dating. The book also employs diverse wordplay and entendres through its 25 chapters, each one representing a “step” in the narrator’s life.
Hamilton said the book will address issues like first love, loving the wrong person, letting the right person go prematurely and the idea of pursuing an unattainable partner, also known as “chasing the unicorn.”
More concrete topics include pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. The book begins with the narrator recounting his adolescent sexual awakening in a comical fashion.
Wilson said Hamilton’s irreverent style mixes effectively with more serious themes that create a work of depth.
“[People] were really quick to lump him in with Tucker Max … and that’s not really the case with this,” Wilson said. “He is looking to be funny, but he is also looking to provide a very unique, specific perspective on being a heterosexual male in the dating world at this point in time.”
According to Hamilton, one of those dating worlds is the University itself. Hamilton felt it was necessary to depict the situations an average man would encounter in college, and found his alma mater to be the perfect choice.
“It was absolutely natural for me to include Bowling Green as that backdrop,” Hamilton said. “Bowling Green … [and] the city proper gave me a lot in my four years there, and it was kind of my way of shouting out where I came from.”
Hamilton may return to BG with a possible book tour depending on the book’s success.
“Assuming that [the tour] does occur, Bowling Green will definitely be on the list of places we will stop by.”
Wurz said he believes the book has the potential to become a bestseller, though he does not see it going into a high school library anytime soon.
“If you ever read an author’s first book, it’s usually kind of awkward,” Wurz said. “[When Hamilton] wrote this, it seemed like he had written a million books.”
