Mullen publishes first novel

Demopolis’ Tristan Mullen has self-published his first novel, Freddie and Andrew, on Amazon. The novel, which he started seven years ago at age 13, is a coming of age story set in his hometown of Demopolis about a group of friends and their life experiences during their junior year of high school.

“I started writing short stories when I was five years old. I’ve always had a lot of ideas and a huge imagination,” Mullen said. He has always received encouragement from his mother and recalled reciting Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech for a church program at age six. That let Mullen know that he had the gift of being able to remember details, which was important in improving his writing skills.

“I would place this book squarely somewhere between Southern Gothic,
tragedy, coming of age, black humor and satire. The basic premise of the novel is the development of the characters’ morality and to point out what I perceive to be social ills or ​societal problems that affect the social structure of the ​society in which we live​,” Mullen said about the premise of the book.

Freddie, the primary protagonist, is on himself, to a certain degree, and shares Mullen’s diagnosis of Asperger’s. His favorite character is Leola, who provides some comic relief to the novel’s dark and emotionally draining scenes.

“The book does use notable landmarks as reference points and places where characters interact. For example, Andrew Middle lives at Gaineswood in the novel. I chose Demopolis as the setting simply because I, for obvious reasons, am familiar with the town and where places are and the culture and such. Some topics discussed in the novel are controversial, but that’s the point. To provoke thought and discussion,” Mullen said about the setting of the novel.

As for the writing process, Mullen said that writing the novel was an interesting experience. He once suffered from writer’s block and “didn’t open Microsoft Word for five days.” He also experienced a three day run where he completed 97 pages.

“The whole time you’re writing, you can’t help but to think about if people will like your book or will accept your ideas. It’s also frustrating the amount of times you have to revise your work. You may write something one day that you think is genius and then the next day, when you reread what you wrote the day before, you think it’s awful and delete all of it. It’s a very tedious process.”

Mullen’s Freddie and Andrew is currently available on Amazon.