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Book Review: Geoff Rickly – Someone Who Isn’t Me

“I want to tell him that the microphone sometimes feels like a tiny satellite that I throw deep into space, and the cord is the gravitational pull of the earth, and when I close my fist, the satellite drops into a perfect little orbit around it.”

Recently, Thursday/No Devotion frontman—and now author—Geoff Rickly released his debut novel Someone Who Isn’t Me. The title, SWIM for short, originates from online drug forums where users start their posts with the phrase, “Someone who isn’t me,” as a way of falsely trying to avoid self-incrimination.

Semi-autobiographical or semi-fictional? Call it what you will, Rickly’s glorious debut follows Rickly as he hits rock bottom and decides to get clean. For the most part, the novel takes place in an Ibogaine clinic in Mexico—physically, that is. Mentally, well, that’s quite literally another story. Drug-induced Alighierian fever dreams lead Rickly to examine his past, jumping back and forth in time as he endeavors to break free of the record-shaped maze that lives within him.

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N.J.’s Geoff Rickly on his debut novel, Thursday’s ‘band afterlife’ and why Springsteen is his Santa

To paraphrase lyrics from the most popular song Geoff Rickly has ever written, he didn’t want to feel this way forever.

The refrain comes from his band Thursday’s “Understanding in a Car Crash,” the opening track off the locally beloved emo band’s seminal 2001 record “Full Collapse.” But it’s also how Rickly felt as he battled heroin addiction years later — a struggle that brought him to Mexico and a psychedelic substance called ibogaine in hopes of getting sober.

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GQ talked to Rickly about Someone Who Isn’t Me, ibogaine, perfume, and the similarities between being a sponsor and a producer.

GQ: When and why did you start writing this book?

Geoff Rickly: Pretty much immediately after I got sober. A lot of it was literally just to give me something to do so I wouldn’t end up on the street corner buying drugs. I just needed to know that I was not going to leave the house, no matter what happened. And writing has always been my favorite part of being a musician. I felt more like a writer with a microphone than a proper singer.

What was your writing process like?

I would wake up with the sun, make coffee, and pick a random perfume and write, “This is what I’m going to spray on my wrists and think about.” Then I would just write until 11ish. Five hours is about my limit for working straight. I also have a ridiculous playlist with no lyrics, it’s about three weeks long. I’d just put that on.

What’s on the playlist?

Sakamoto, who just passed, I have a lot of his work. William Basinski. A lot of noise stuff and house music, too.