David B. Roundsley - Author, Musician, Graphic Designer

Bad Blood: A Life Without Consequence, the book and album by Munich Syndrome are available now from:

and from Munich Syndrome’s BandCamp page:

https://www.munichsyndrome.bandcamp.com

Review by: Anthony R, Cardno

MY THOUGHTS: This is an absolutely engrossing memoir about adoption, secrets, and the search to understand where we came from and who we are. I found it extremely hard to put down. That’s partially because of the way the book is structured. The reader only becomes privy to information as Roundsley’s original search uncovered it. There are a few hints at the start of the book of what will ultimately be revealed (most but not all of which is noted in the book’s back cover matter) but for the most part we the audience must endure the same staggers and stutters the author did. Long fallow periods are interspersed surges of new leads some of which go nowhere and some of which open new roads of inquiry. This heightens the immediacy of the book and kept me more interested than maybe a straight chronological history of the author’s birth parents would have.

It doesn’t take long for Roundsley (and the reader) to realize his adoption was an unusual one. Or perhaps not so unusual given the time period as it was something “nice” people just didn’t consider a reality: that behind-closed-doors baby-trafficking happened even among “polite” society. As author learns more about his late birth mother’s life and gets closer to meeting his birth father, the stakes start to feel exceedingly high indeed. There are some very, very dark moments in the birth parents’ past, and some of them are uneasy to read about.

But the story is not all crime, drug use, physical abuse, and attempted murder – Roundsley discovers several half-siblings and meets their families. Their parts in the story are equally, if not more, tragic – but the larger family and obvious love these half-siblings develop for each other are a happy ending to such a dark background. Roundsley sprinkles their stories in with his search, even letting one sister take over for a section to reveal her own almost Dickensian history. I do feel as though I intimately know all of the parties involved thanks to Roundsley’s very personal, intimate, and familiar writing style and the way he’s willing to cede the stage to his siblings when the narrative warrants.

Along the way, the author also reveals a bit about his adoptive family and touches on the struggles of being a creative and obviously gay boy in a family that clearly doesn’t accept it. While the adoptive parents and sibling don’t have nearly the tragic life Roundsley’s birth parents did, they still play several key roles in the way the story unfolds. I have to say I’d love to see a second memoir from Roundsley about his later childhood and eventual coming out; I suspect there’s a lot more to that part of his life than he was able to include in this book. He’s also had quite a career in the music industry: he writes and records music as Munich Syndrome, and there is a companion CD to the book. I know there are a lot of compelling stories he could weave together with his coming out to form a second memoir.

Bad Blood: A Life Without Consequence is available for Pre-Order in Kindle form on Amazon if you missed the Kickstarter for the project. In BOOK REVIEWS Tags book review, non-fiction challenge, memoir, Munich Syndrome, David B. Roundsley

Goodbye 2020…

A year few anticipated that presented everyone with struggles and challenges to overcome and get through. Despite the many loses and challenges the year presented, it’s also been a year of resilience and hope. On many fronts people pulled together to do what’s best for others as well as themselves and I have every confidence we will turn several corners in the coming year and come out better as a result.

For myself, 2020 was an unexpectedly productive year. I had been working on the book, Bad Blood: A Life Without Consequence, throughout most of 2019 and “thought” it was finished at the end of that year. A chance conversation around the start of the year crystalized a couple of nagging thoughts and suspicions, leading to a different ending for the book. While going through the process of editing the final version and the world suddenly shutting down at the beginning of March, I found myself in the studio a LOT. What came out of these sessions were very different from the previous work I had been doing. I had envisioned moving into a full-on electronic dance album, but instead some very introspective compositions materialized. I found myself bringing in strings, acoustic guitar and other instruments not normally utilized in the previous releases.

GRAY/SCALE just seemed to materialize out of nowhere, but I didn’t realize until after a very fast digital release, that it was also the bedrock and foundation for what came next: Bad Blood, the album. As we waited for the various guest editors to get back to us with notes, we realized the best option for releasing the book was crowdsourcing. After a LOT of research, we went with Kickstarter. Creating the campaign, it occurred to me “a song” might be appropriate to go with the campaign. But with that song, “Bad Blood (The Ballad of a Bad Man)”, a theme emerged. I realized that several songs written over the period of timeline covered in the book were about or were a response to the events in the book. Before I knew it a curated listening / soundtrack album emerged. Along with that, creating a few videos turned into a quest to make a video for each song on the Bad Blood album as well.

I wanted to utilize every tool at my disposal (the written word, music, video, graphics) to tell and explain the narrative of Bad Blood to its very fullest. Every aspect of the project was under my creative umbrella. January 1 will see the release of the book and album on Amazon and all major digital platforms.

The book and project were a cathartic exorcism of ghosts and lies. Many of them looming much larger and longer than was actually warranted. Perhaps had the world not closed in on itself when it did things wouldn’t have come together as they eventually did?

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous new year!!!