Brand-Changing Day: A Note from the Author
Shawn MihalikThere’s something about restaurants. Something about them that sucks in aspiring creatives—writers, actors, artists—and in so many cases never lets them go. Since I turned sixteen (I’m twenty-three now), I’ve worked for four corporate restaurant chains spread out across six individual buildings in three different cities, and during that entire period of my life, I was learning to be a writer.
It seemed to me fitting, then, that my first novel, which I spent a year writing, should be about a restaurant.
And that is what it’s about: a restaurant. And when people ask me what it’s about, that’s what I tell them. But I’ve find that “It’s about a restaurant” is, for me, a terribly unsatisfying response to give. And so, instead of sitting here and telling you that Brand-Changing Day, which is available today, is about Scott Pelletier, waiter, and Geoff McCree, general manager, and Lori Bristol, waitress, and Mike the Bartender, position obvious, and all these other people who work in a fictional American chain restaurant called The Grill, I think it would be better—more prudent, more important—to instead tell you who this book is for.
First, this book is probably not for children. My last book was for both adults and children; this one isn’t.
Second, and here’s the important part, Brand-Changing Day is a novel for anyone who’s ever worked in the hospitality industry. It’s for the countless young adults and gen-Yers who, like me, have at some point in their lives found it deeply cathartic to log into Facebook and share links to Buzzfeed articles that, with no limit to the depths of their irony and sarcasm, list the top twenty best things about being a waiter. It’s for single mothers. It’s for children of single mothers. It’s for line cooks and pastry chefs. It’s for middle-aged middle-managers and for advertisers and for fans of long-running BBC science fiction shows. It’s for the godly and the godless. It’s for CEOs. It’s for everyone who saw Waiting and thought, This is pretty funny and all, but it doesn’t even begin to get to the heart of what it means to work in a restaurant. It’s for the student who isn’t quite sure what’s next (note: Brand-Changing Day does not contain the answer to the question, but it’s still for the people who ask the question). It’s for the hopeful. For the lost. For those on a path or off one. (I’m also told the book is quite funny, so I guess it’s also for people who like funny things.)
And of course Brand-Changing Day isn’t for just these people. It’s for all of you. I wrote it for you because its the sort of book I wish someone would have written for me seven years ago.
Honestly, I don’t want to ask you to buy Brand-Changing Day, but I will ask you to, please, take a look at the book on Amazon. Download the preview. Tell your friends. And if you do read the book, please leave a review. Thank you.
—Shawn
P.S. Obligatory links: