Alec Pangia Books

Greetings friends. So not long ago, a friend and I went to see Sweeney Todd at a small theater in Vineland. Indeed, the bloody revenge play is something that I found interesting the moment that I first laid eyes on it. There was just one problem. When the film version first came out—and as I was unaware of the original Sondheim stage musical—I avoided it for years. It looked too darn gory! And I was pretty timid when it came to dark stories in dimly lit places. Now, not only do I love it, but it influenced my debut novel, Barker’s Rules.  So how did a timid guy like me come to love Sweeney Todd and write Barker’s Rules? I believe it has a lot to do with Sweeney Todd being a revenge play. Revenge plays typically feature a protagonist who has been wronged, who seeks to kill a certain someone by the play’s conclusion, thus making that target the story’s antagonist. Much of the mainstream audience seems to agree that murder is wrong, to be moral is to b...

For me, life has always been systematic. In September, you go back to school. At the end of October, it’s time to trick or treat. From November to the end of December, the holidays consume all. At the end of May, it’s time for summer vacation! And somewhere in the middle of all of it, you celebrate your birthday. Until I turned 21, I unknowingly regarded each of my years as the latest in a cycle of favorite occurrences. These cycles came to be the defining aspect of my life, even after graduating high school, as I went straight into four-year college, straight into another systematic routine. Then, when I finally joined the mainstream workforce, I cruised right from August into September and nothing changed, whatsoever. That gets you thinking. Life changes. Systems eventually end. Routines change. And as you grow older, you acquire new things to look forward to. With that said, there is one system I have begun in my early adulthood that (so far) seems to be forming in...