While grappling with the massive ambition of Someone Who Isn't Me, the debut novel by Geoff Rickly, it's helpful to look back at the debut album by Rickly's legendary emo/post-hardcore band, Thursday. That album, Waiting, came out in 1999, when Rickly was just 20 years old. His inexperience showed: Although Waiting is an electrifying record, it's overly beholden to its obvious influences (mainly Fugazi and Sunny Day Real Estate, two of the most popular bands of those genres). Waiting also fails to fully showcase the staggering potential of Rickly as both a vocalist and a lyricist. It wasn't until Thursday's second album in 2001, Full Collapse, when it all came together. It's rightly considered a classic of its era, and it crystallized Rickly as — no hyperbole, just fact — one of the most poetic, impactful and inspirational voices of his generation.
Does that mean Someone Who Isn't Me is the literary equivalent of Waiting, a debut work that shows more promise than power? Not exactly. After all, Rickly is now in his 40s. Between Thursday and all the other bands he's fronted over the past quarter-decade, he's written the equivalent of many books, only in song form. Of course, a novel is very different from an album, and many musicians have dashed themselves against the rocks in an attempt to transfer their lyrical ability to prose. As it turns out, Rickly is solidly in the camp of successful songwriters-turned-authors such as John Darnielle and Nick Cave. When it comes to making the shift to the written word, he's a natural, albeit a germinal one.
