Rising Stars: Meet James Mueller of Phoenix Metro North

Today we’d like to introduce you to James Mueller

Hi James, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?

I have to create.  It’s not a rational decision – no more than breathing is.  From my earliest memories, I created: drawing, building, writing – whatever it took to make my dreams come alive.  Paint the picture you always wanted to see and write the novel you always wanted to read – but for me, it even went further:  paint the world and write the novel you always wanted to live in.  And therein lies the catch because you can’t, of course, unless you settle on a world that can never be. 

But Catcher in the Rye changed all that.  That was a reality I could live with.  At that point, I was determined to continue where Holden had left off and write the “Great American Novel.”  But it wasn’t until I read Portnoy’s Complaint that I knew how I would do it.  Before that, I merely dabbled in satirical caricatures, comedy skits, and playwriting – initially inspired by Twain, John Osborne (Look Back in Anger), and comedians. Still, it wasn’t until Salinger and Roth that I found my “voice,” and it all came together.  From that point on, everything I did was merely a means to achieve that goal.  Even my painting was initially just a means to write.  I just didn’t think it would become as successful as it did.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As far as the art, yes!  Maybe too easy.  But as far as what I  REALLY wanted – to write “The Great American Novel” – no! And yet I always remember what one scholar of modern American literature said – “I like your art, but it pales next to your writing.  It’s every bit as good as Saul Bellow.” To make a long story short, to support myself while writing “The Great American Novel,” I had an art show in Washington, DC, sponsored by Senator Pete Domenici from New Mexico in 1976; later that year, a show in Miami, Florida that was bought out by Robert Abplanalp, the world-famous industrialist, and from that point on he essentially bought every painting I ever painted.  In 1980, he flew me up from Miami, where I lived at the time, to meet Richard Nixon in Manhattan and paint his portrait.  In 1988, I had a one-person show in Paris, France, with great reviews, and a year later, I was invited by the president of Beaux-Arts to exhibit at the exclusive Beaux-Arts.  And I could go on and on, but the bottom line is none of this success advanced my primary goal – that of completing “The Great American Novel” (which was essentially three novels – The Mendicant, The Militant, and The Missionary – but all under one cover – Confessions of St. Augustine). So shortly after that, I took the “vows of poverty,” essentially living a monastic lifestyle, working and living with people who are developmentally disabled at Rainbow Acres in Camp Verde, Arizona, so I could, for the next 22 years, finish up “The Great American Novel” free of the demands of the art world.  And that’s when I decided to incorporate my paintings into my novel.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
What sets me apart from others? Hundreds of paintings and drawings – all in a picaresque (as well as picturesque) novel in the tradition of Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy’s Complaint, and Catch-22, but with one more catch – the narrator IS the artist. Set against the background of drawings and paintings as diverse as Daumier and Degas, Hopper and Homer, the stories are woven together in such a way it can only be described as a unique hybrid – a literary novel and an art book that has no rival in the history of the novel (in this case, a trilogy – where you see his vision of American, the world, and ultimately life itself evolve from the zeitgeist of the day to the apocalyptic).

“The Voice of a Holden Caulfield, Alexander Portnoy, Robin Williams, Jack Nicholson, and yes – even a Samuel L. Jackson for starters, but the ying and yang of modern man in all his bipolar glory – wavering between Augustine and Auschwitz, Sartre and certainty – heaven or hell… – but desperately searching for meaning with little more than his words and his art as a means to express it. A wild, manic, full throttle ride through our subconscious dreamscapes.”

And what’s my main reason for writing my trilogy?  Because I believe the arts have the greatest power to influence people. That’s the rational side of me.  Ironically, the other side of me – the real source of my creativity – would instead rather write the “perfect novel” and never be read, than write a hundred lesser ones and have everybody read it (to get back to my opening statement).  Like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty or The Hands of Orlac, my mind and hands would eventually betray me. Anything less, but more practical, was doomed to failure because I would rather create that one great masterpiece that would take a lifetime of complete dedication than all those one hundred lesser ones that I knew would guarantee me a life of fame, fortune, and ease. 

Many people have asked me over the years why I never pursued my painting when I could have had it all—fame, fortune, and comfort. The answer is simple: because I never would have created that novel I always wanted to read, just those paintings I always wanted to see.

Call it hubris or just being the consummate artist, but an artist who spends a lifetime on a work of art that may never be seen, read, or heard has to believe it was worth it.  For example, 100 years from now, I want my novel to be regarded as the greatest novel of the 21st Century. In the meantime, however, I’ll settle for that cult-like following that generated the kind of response that classics like The Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy’s Complaint, and Catch-22 generated – the type of novel that not only spoke to a whole generation – but the kind of novel that changed a whole generation – and since I’m already getting responses from readers of every persuasion from every major continent* listing it on Facebook, Instagram, and elsewhere as one of their all-time favorite novels along with the greatest novels of all-time, including the greatest novel of the 20th Century, ULYSSES! the real question now is – where do I go from here? It’s obvious the one thing I’ve lacked (besides modesty) is a promoter par excellence (such as the incomparable Grayce McCormick, without whom this interview wouldn’t have even taken place in the first place).

* – No buyers from Antarctica yet.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Books mainly.  Starting with the Bible, which I read repeatedly, every classic listed on the world’s greatest lists (yes, even Finnegans Wake) – to the point where they, along with everything else we’re able to absorb in our short stay on earth, all become the groundwork for everything I think, do, say, and write about.

I am now living and working with the Apache Indians at the Middle Verde Rock Church by the Yavapai Apache Reservation in Middle Verde, where, in some small measure, I try to carry out what I so ardently try to say in my book.

Pricing:

• 2013 Book $19.95
• 2025 Limited Second Edition $29.99

Contact Info:

• Website: https://muellerartandliterature.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/confessionsofstaugustine/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IconoclastPublishingLLC
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@confessionsofst.augustine4094

Image Credits
Mueller Art & Literature, Iconoclast Publishing