The Mess That Made Them is a narrative nonfiction book exploring how artists, outliers, and cultural figures endured rejection, failure, and contradiction to create something lasting. Structured around six creative pressures—refusal, containment, survival, exile, darkness, and reinvention—it reframes legacy through the lens of persistence rather than perfection.

The manuscript is complete and currently seeking representation.

Yeah, but what’s it about?

Let’s start with what it isn’t. This isn’t a book about how to succeed. It’s a book about how to keep going when success still feels out of reach. Through the lives of 24 historical figures, from Caravaggio and Mary Shelley to Shostakovich and Agatha Christie, it asks what it really takes to endure, and what we lose when we edit that mess out of the story.

Don’t be coy, friend. Who’s in it?

Caravaggio

Modest Mussorgsky

Oscar Wilde

Frédéric Chopin

Pablo Picasso

James Baldwin

Francisco Goya

Mary Shelley

Dmitri Shostakovich

Yayoi Kusama

Frank Auerbach

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Franz Kafka

Grant Wood

Kazimir Malevich

Claude Debussy

Vincent van Gogh

Edvard Munch

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Marcel Duchamp

Agatha Christie

Georgia O’Keeffe

Josef Strauss

Caravaggio Modest Mussorgsky Oscar Wilde Frédéric Chopin Pablo Picasso James Baldwin Francisco Goya Mary Shelley Dmitri Shostakovich Yayoi Kusama Frank Auerbach Sergei Rachmaninoff Franz Kafka Grant Wood Kazimir Malevich Claude Debussy Vincent van Gogh Edvard Munch Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky F. Scott Fitzgerald Marcel Duchamp Agatha Christie Georgia O’Keeffe Josef Strauss

Lots of books. Why does this one matter?

Because we celebrate brilliance but punish becoming. This book is about what it takes to keep going before anyone cares, and why that matters more than genius ever did. It reframes legacy not as the reward for talent, but as the result of stubborn, messy survival. These stories aren’t about how to succeed. They’re about how to endure even when no one is watching.