We writers are a chummy group. We often attend the same university classes, study under the same mentors, cheer each other on, and cry in our beer together. It doesn’t much matter whether we write poetry or prose–the challenges and defeats are the same. And the job does not get any easier as publishers go out of business and the misguided decide to ban books.

One of my favorite chums from past years has been former MFA classmate Steve Eoannou who was part of my learning pod at Queens University of Charlotte. For those of you who are not writers, those classes are collaborative and magical, and it is Steve above all others who stands out in my memory.

While Steve and I had very different writing styles and subject matter, his feedback in class was spot-on and quite direct. I was writing WRANGLE, a western novel inspired by my uncle’s quarter horse ranch in Texas and I can still hear Steve’s voice: “Jonnie, you’ve done it again—buried the lead. Your novel begins on page 21; cut the first 20.” Ouch.

But it was that same insight, that visceral understanding of how a novel works, that has continued to make Steve’s own work a success. I intend it as a primo compliment when I describe Steve’s writing as muscular fiction.

Just by chance, his first novel was a short story collection entitled MUSCLE CARS (2015) exploring the male fascination with autos. His characters were straight out of Buffalo, and included a “cast of inarticulate misfits. . . including two boyhood friends who plan to steal Ted Williams’ scientifically frozen head.”

Steve seems to have a particular skill at creating or locating misfits to star in his books. Next came the novel ROOK (2022), an historical fiction based on Al Nussbaum, who foolishly partners with the more violent Bobby Wilcoxson to rob a bank. As would be expected in a muscular book, Al goes on the lam, and his loving wife Lolly is left to deal with the fallout.

Next came YESTERYEAR (2023), another historical fiction that imagines the life of playwright Fran Striker who invents the character of The Lone Ranger, “but first he must overcome writer’s block, defeat a curse, foil a plot to assassinate FDR, and recover stolen Diamond rings belonging to an alcoholic boxing champion.”

Besides being a great coach and critic for his fellow writers, Steve also understood his lane – creating characters that are bigger than life and twice as entertaining. Most recently he has taken his characters to a new level in a “classic noir” entitled AFTER PEARL (2025). There’s alcoholic private eye Nicholas Bishop, a dame, cops, mobsters, and “a cabal of American Nazis.”

I think Steve has found his perfect genre in noir, with its muscular characters and hardboiled prose. AFTER PEARL is intended to be the first in a series of Nicholas Bishop Mysteries, so you can buy this first novel and keep tabs on the sequels via this link:  http://www.sgeoannou.com/.

JONNIE MARTIN