Dennis Dorgan

I recently retired from fifty years of working with private and government agencies that took on the heart-rending issues confronting low-income persons in our country: domestic violence, homelessness, hunger, unemployment and systemic racism. So, instead of writing the Great American Genre-Busting Novel, I wrote a carload of funding proposals and similar documents. They steered millions of dollars to legal aid and other organizations that serve low-income families and communities. It was good and important work.

The Narcissism of Small Differences is my debut novel. It grew out of my interest in politics, history, law enforcement, Russian criminal gangs, dark matter, Ojibwe culture, the subconscious mind, dreams, psychopaths, the many forms of narcissism, and the City of St. Paul’s criminal-friendly past.These all came together in a dream several years ago that led me to write this book.

I had several purposes in writing this off-center novel. First, I wanted it to be entertaining. If readers don't laugh, or at lest smile, every page or so, I will have failed. But I also wanted to appeal to the reader's intellect. While the book is certainly about The Narcissism of Small Differences, it also deals with theories about the multiverse, ideas regarding memory and the sense of self, as well as an exploration of psychopathy v. the "normal" mind. Finally I wanted to bust open the genre of mystery-thriller-detective fiction. My sense is that the genre has become formulaic, predictable and tired. It needs a hard kick in the groin and I hope this novel delivered it.

Since retirement, I have Iived happily on the shores of one of Minnesota’s ten-thousand lakes with my wife, Debra, dog, Finnegan, and an invisible water sprite that keeps plugging new characters into my psyche.