Inspiration Archives - A Bad Hand

The Power of a Title: Why A Bad Hand Was the Only Choice

Harrison Jenkins — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 23:53:55 +0000

Front Cover: The worst luck

If you’ve seen the cover, you already know the first metaphorical reference in a A Bad Hand. I’m sure many literary agents or publishers representing book club fiction or YA fiction authors have already noted that the cover doesn’t look like other popular titles today. I knew at the start of this project that story would be different from anything on the market today—an under-served audience, no wizards or magic, no science fiction. I also knew it wouldn’t be an easy sell for any literary agent that wanted to take a risk. Suffice it to say, the cover was as intentional as the content of the book.

The three cards on the cover of the novel are gambling cards from Edo Japan. Those three cards are make up the unluckiest hand one can have a game of chance called Oicho-kabu (おいちょかぶ). The cards are a 8 (ya), 9 (kyu), and 3 (za). In Oichu-kabu this unlucky combination scores zero points—quite literally a bad hand.

The cards above are taken from a traditional kabufuda deck. More common today are the cards that look less abstract like the hanafuda deck (also known as “flower cards”) shown below:

Those who enjoy Mario Cart or Super Smash Bros. might be interested to know that the Nintendo company got its start printing cards like this many years before Donkey Kong or the Nintendo Entertainment System.

UCL Tear: A Common Baseball Injury

When my son was twelve, he developed Little League Elbow—a condition that affects about 25% of all youth baseball players. The condition results from repeated strain on the Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL) that stabilizes the elbow during normal throwing motion. Thankfully, he was back on the dirt after a few weeks of rest. I recall seeing other kids his age at tournaments who wore braces on their elbows signaling that they had undergone Tommy John surgery to reconstruct their UCL using tissue donated from their leg. It’s quite common for professional and college pitchers to have this procedure done during their career.

A Yakuza Tradition

Some members of the Yakuza voluntarily dismember their little finger as a gesture of atonement to their brethren in the Japanese underworld in a ritual called Yubitsume. It’s said that this practice is rooted in the tradition of the samurai and weakens one’s grip on the sword. It was interesting to discover a cottage industry of prosthetic fingers has emerged to help reformed Yakuza members rehabilitate back into society.

More Than a Title

A Bad Hand is an over-arching theme throughout the book that touches on more than just the metaphors above. You’ll read about characters who have been dealt a bad hand in life. Some show resilience. Others succumb to the challenges that life throws at them. I hope A Bad Hand is an inspiration to keep grinding forward regardless of the challenging circumstances life might be throwing at you.

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Unofficial Soundtrack: Hero by Weezer

Harrison Jenkins — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 06:45:47 +0000

Meeting Weezer

I didn’t get into Weezer until I saw their Buddy Holly video. It was much later than it should’ve been. I guess I wasn’t paying good enough attention. Hero was released during the COVID-19 pandemic as a thank you—a tribute to healthcare workers and other people who kept our economy moving while many of us retreated to our homes. I remember being moved when I saw the band’s expression of gratitude and this special tribute to people they didn’t know. Although I arrived at the Weezer party later than most, they’re on repeat today. It Feels Like Summer and the band’s 2017 Pacific Daydream album has an unusual ability to encapsulate the nostalgic California summer vibe, and I love their covers of Toto’s Africa and A-ha’s Take On Me.

Hero in Context

The music video for Hero is basic but represents Zoom life that so many came to know during the Pandemic. After watching it again while writing this post, I thought of my own son’s experience in his the makeshift office space that he commandeered in our home while he tried to digest his math and English lessons while dealing with the isolation from friends. So many connections were taken from us during that time and the video reminded me that even though black bars separated us on Zoom calls, we needed to hang on to the things that connected us as humans. All kinds of people engaged in dozens of activities handled the band’s thank you note before the full text finally appeared on screen.

Reluctant Hero

The main character in A Bad Hand, James Webb, reflects the same kind of reluctant hero described in Weezer’s song—someone who has dreams of greatness but wrestles with their own feelings of inadequacy.

They build you up, and then they’re gonna tear you down

They love you, then they hate you if you wear a crown

It’s not that I don’t love to solve a mystery

But life is hard enough with one identity

James Webb’s foil in the story, a Yakuza boss named Hokusai, comes to grips with his inadequacy in a different way and responds to these questions in completely different ways. His journey is described (in part at least) by a scene in front of an Osaka restaurant:

The front window of the restaurant doubled as a ten foot wide aquarium full of crab, sea urchin, fish and other creatures. As they waited for The Bull, Hokusai watched as one of the chefs climbed up a ladder and reached into the aquarium with a wooden rake-like catcher, selecting a fresh crab to prepare for one of the dinner guests. After the chef left the aquarium, Hokusai became transfixed on the crabs. He watched as they climbed on top of one another, attempting to reach the surface of the aquarium. As soon as one crab climbed close to the top, another animal would attempt to use the top crab as a ladder, pulling it down to wrestle with the others. Hokusai watched this cycle repeat three times from the silence of the Mercedes…

Some of my favorite reluctant heroes come from real life. Just like Weezer was inspired by the reluctant heroes in Hero, I too am inspired by the reluctant heroes I’ve seen in my own life. I especially love those who have stood with courage to do the right thing in the face of odds that were stacked against them.

Note: Neither Weezer nor Crush Music/Atlantic has endorsed, nor are they in any way affiliated with A Bad Hand or Wander Lane Media. If you are Rivers Cuomo and you’re reading this, thanks for sharing your art and music with us. It’s an honor to have you visit my site and read about my novel. I would love to send you a copy of A Bad Hand. Please leave me a message on my Contact Form.

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What is a Nazar?

Harrison Jenkins — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:35:33 +0000

You might already know what a nazar looks like. Maybe you have seen one and didn’t even know it. A few years back, everyone from Gigi Hadid to Kim Kardashian and Megan Markle were photographed with nazar-themed jewelry and footwear. Maybe I was late to the nazar game.

Nazar icons have traditionally been associated with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. This video features Turkish fishermen adorning their boats with Nazar talismans for protection. When I was writing this book, I happened upon a boutique that specializes in imported Turkish jewelry in downtown Palm Springs, California. They had dozens of nazar designs on bracelets, keychains, necklaces, and other items. You might’ve noticed that a nazar is the icon image for this website.

The nazar pendant in A Band Hand is on a keychain and reminds characters of two forces in their favor: 1) They aren’t alone, 2) That God will “re-build” them. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who lived some 1,800 years after the ancient patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, also known as Israel) expounded on the promises God had made to these patriarchs:

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. “Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with lapis lazuli…” (Found in Isaiah chapter 54, verse 11)

A reference to this passage is engraved on the back side of the nazar pendant in the book, reminding its owners (yes, that was a bit of a spoiler) that God will always honor promises he has made with anyone who chooses to follow Him—that He will re-build them into someone better than they ever thought possible.

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Art: Babel by Cildo Meireles

Harrison Jenkins — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 04:26:53 +0000

To celebrate our daughter getting her BFA in graphic design (I’m biased but she’s pretty talented), our family visited Europe. One of the highlights was a visit to Tate Modern. Among the many impressive works was an installation by the Brazilian artist, Cildo Meireles. Meireles is known for large and dense installations that encourage interaction with his work.

Sora described Babel to a customer in her Tokyo coffee shop. Writing commercial fiction didn’t allow me to detail to this impressive work. When I walked into the gallery, I knew immediately Babel was something that would stay with me (note: Un-mute the audio on for the best way to experience the installation.):

Tate Modern’s description of Babel can be read here. I found this excerpt particularly helpful:

Babel 2001 is a large-scale sculptural installation that takes the form of a circular tower made from hundreds of second-hand analogue radios that the artist has stacked in layers. The radios are tuned to a multitude of different stations and are adjusted to the minimum volume at which they are audible. Nevertheless, they compete with each other and create a cacophony of low, continuous sound, resulting in inaccessible information, voices or music.

In describing this work, Meireles refers to a ‘tower of incomprehension’ (quoted in Tate Modern 2008, p.168). The installation manifests, quite literally, a Tower of Babel, relating it to the biblical story of a tower tall enough to reach the heavens, which, offending God, caused him to make the builders speak in different tongues. Their inability to communicate with one another caused them to become divided and scatter across the earth and, moreover, became the source of all of mankind’s conflicts.

What a great metaphor for what we humans are challenged with every day: seeking to understand one another amid the cacophony. Since the start of the information age, we have been forced to adapt to ever decreasing signal-to-noise ratios. Finding understanding is different for us today and requires more effort. The same holds true with consuming information. Historically, the challenge was finding information. Today, the challenge is curating information. Today, anyone with an idea can find someone who agrees with them. We’re that connected. Finding truth and wisdom, however, has become more difficult than ever. This thoughtful documentary illustrates this difficulty.

Meireles’ Babel was a fitting backdrop and title for chapter 8. One of the characters is struggling with his own internal monologue, rocked the person he sees in front of him and the ways that person might change his views of who he is. The garrulous Sora explains how she was struck by seeing Babel while the person she is talking to can’t even hear what she is saying.

I’d like to hear your perspective on Meireles’ work. Please let me know in the comments below.

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The Unofficial Soundtrack for A Bad Hand

Harrison Jenkins — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 04:59:30 +0000

TLDR: Listen to the Soundtrack

First, A History Lesson

It’s a typical Saturday night in 1990. My best friends and I are sitting on the round stools, headphones on, at the Blockbuster Music listening bar. We spent hours doing this. Even with 35 years of perspective, I continue to think it was time well spent. For those who aren’t acquainted with pre-streaming means of consuming music, the experience went something like this:

Visit a retail location with thousands of square feet dedicated to selling albums on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, and compact disc. The adoption of compact discs (hats off to a hometown technology pioneer for his contributions to this experience), where audio quality didn’t degrade over time, really unlocked the listening bar experience.
Walk through the store, locating CDs that you wanted to sample before you purchased.
Take the CD to the store employee who would open the sealed CD, put it into a player that was linked to a specific pair of headphones at the listening bar.

It was my first memory of understanding the difference between a retail transaction and a retail experience. After purchasing CDs that featured just one artist, we all wanted to play DJ or compile our favorite tracks onto a mixtape. My daughter, who has only known streaming music, explored this mixtape phenomenon in a design project called B-Side.

A classic from the 1990s

The Unofficial Connection to the Book

I was surprised by all the music that rang through my head while writing this novel. James’ drive to the hospital in chapter 30 (A Drive to the Stars), his visit to his Uncle Ben’s “office” in Chapter 41 (Koigokoro), and thinking about him wrenching on his motorcycle in chapter 13 (Lauren’s Text) inspired me to recall songs and artists that I love to listen to. An unexpected relationship between the great music by so many artists emerged and inspired the characters, the setting, and the challenges they faced throughout the story.

I hope you’ll take a minute to enjoy the start of the soundtrack I’m assembling. Those who have an ARC of the book or have read early copies of the manuscript will identify the moments or characters each track points to. For those who are still waiting for a copy, consider it a preview of what’s to come. Stay tuned for more posts about the music that rang through my head as I wrote A Bad Hand.

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