M.F. Hamlin
Author Interview - M.F. Hamlin
Author of Skinny Dipping at Low Tide: A Saga of Squeezed Shorts, Shattered Dreams and Embarrassing Riches
Nick Haller moved to Nashville at twenty-two to write songs. It didn't take. Three decades later he's a marketing executive at a dying video game chain, PwnShop, a man who's spent his whole adult life in jobs he's good at and never wanted, quietly sure he was supposed to be an artist and increasingly unable to remember why he stopped.
Then the world's stupidest miracle lands on his desk.
Skinny Dipping at Low Tide is the story of what it felt like to be inside a company like GameStop in early 2021, when a swarm of Reddit traders turned a left-for-dead retailer into the most insane financial event in a generation. But it's barely a finance book. It's a midlife coming-of-age story that happens to take place in a boardroom during a once-in-a-lifetime market freakout, narrated by the one guy in the building who suspects the whole thing is a cosmic joke at his expense.
The cast is the joy of it: ex-military executives who communicate exclusively in KPIs, a board operating on auto-pilot, some vainglorious activists, and the genuinely devoted army of clerks and customers who turned a struggling mall store into a movement. Those last ones are the heart of it. In a building full of people gaming the game, the clerks and the customers are the only ones who actually believe in something.
Doubling down on the clerks and customers, Haller spends his tenure convinced he's found a way to save the company, building the plan that finally makes the case. Instead activists take over, the stock goes to the moon for reasons that have nothing to do with anything he did, his earnest little turnaround ends up in the shredder, and he gets rich anyway. He falls up the ladder, down the ladder, and then fells the ladder to float away. The book is about what it costs to win a game you've finally realized you never wanted to play.
Author Interview - M.F. Hamlin
Author I draw inspiration from:
Tom Robbins, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Lewis, John Kennedy Toole -- (Still Life with Woodpecker, Bonfire of the Vanities, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Liar's Poker, A Confederacy of Dunces)
Author Interview - M.F. Hamlin | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
On my deceased dad's worn out recliner in my music studio above the garage.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. We'd discuss our mutual underemployment; we'd jawbone strategies to lure the attention of the women in our lives away from the intentional, natty life messes we've made (his mother/my wife); we'd walk away from each other in superior disgust, having a modicum of respect for the other's glumness while smiling that their self-loathing could never rival our own.
Author Interview - M.F. Hamlin | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
When an angst-ridden essay flowed out of me the morning after the George Floyd riots wondering how our country is regressing in race relations and I received an outpouring of support for the prose and the ideas within.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
This is a funny question. It reminds me of high school AP Chemistry. I had a buddy with whom I'd parlay about the merits of his "hard softback" lab book in relation to my "soft hardback." They both worked, but boy would we face off in conscious (not unconscious) bias on the futility of the other's form factor. The reality is this: within the strength of each format lies its inherent weakness.
Hardback: It has a jacket you can remove if it gets too hot, but.. Its corners leave visual forensic evidence when you 'throw the book' at someone.
Paperback: It bends to your will, but... the proportion of pulp in the juice is overwhelming.
Ebook: It customizes to your will (and aging eyesight), but... You can't doodle a flip book in the right facing corners when you're bored with the content.
Audiobook: Better than braille I'm guessing for the visually impaired, but.. the hearing impaired are deaf to its ideas.
The last book I read:
How Music Works by David Byrne. Mad man love for a modern genius. It's a phenomenal take on making music, sometimes technical and sometimes visceral, where the
Author Interview - M.F. Hamlin | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Refer to my elevator ride with Ignatius. Even I can't read my own handwriting. Notes and ideas and doodles in a notebook beget real writing at the computer. End of story. (one and a half years later before an editor gets a hold of it)
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Ken Kesey in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. We'd be consubstantial in our "intersubjectivity" and when we went to prison, (he for drug use, me for unsafe driving speed) we could pursue our second careers together (he as a logger in an Oregon work camp, and me as an aging prison librarian.) [see next question]
Author Interview - M.F. Hamlin | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
Aging Prison Librarian. No rent. No bills. No accumulation of stuff. No wardrobe decisions. Missionary for ideas. All the time in the world to read. Proctored, time-limited phone calls. Conjugal visits.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
When fig leaves gave way to loin cloths.
Place I’d most like to travel:
Time. Duh.
My signature drink:
Alcoholic: Jameson on Sonic ice. (I'm so over the bro-culture of bourbon. Neat ain't that neat and big rocks hurt your teeth when they slam into them. Plus, what's the point of ice if you can't chew it loudly and obnoxiously?). Irish whiskey is perfection and while there are posher single malt distillations, the pearls ain't worth the clams. I mean, C'mon. John Jameson was of Scottish heritage and moved to Dublin. The whiskey is blended, and therefore a melting pot of all that is right and good with whiskey and whisky.
Nonalcoholic: Buddha's Best Tart Cherry Lime Kombucha.
Favorite artist:
The world's best sand castle sculptor: AI can't touch it; Nature can wreck it in a nanosecond.
Number one on my bucket list:
Would there be anything more satisfying than cleaning the ice at an NHL hockey game on a Zamboni? I think not. It's therefore numbers one, two, and three on my bucket list.
Anything else you'd like to add:
I'd love to add... an infinite number of integers. And then subtract one.
(...that's my asinine attempt at geek math humor. Sorry. Couldn't help it. But do you get it? You can't really add an infinite number of integers. The sum would just be infinity. But infinity minus 1? Sorry. Still infinity. But maybe, just maybe, it's a distinct, uniquely smaller infinite number. Of course the joke stinks anyway if you explain it. So the jury will simply ignore the words inside these parentheses.)
Find more from the author:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankmhamlin
Instagram Author account: https://www.instagram.com/mfhamlin/ @MFHamlin
Instagram Personal account: https://www.instagram.com/effem_aitch/ @effem_aitch
Substack: https://substack.com/@mfhamlin @MFHamlin
X (FKA Twitter) https://x.com/MFHamlin @MFHamlin
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@mfhamlin @MFHamlin
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/mfhamlin.bsky.social @MFHamlin.bluesky.social
About M.F. Hamlin:
M.F. Hamlin
Frank "M.F." Hamlin is the former EVP and Chief Customer Officer at GameStop, where he served in the C-Suite during the unprecedented pandemic-era short squeeze. His debut novel, Skinny Dipping at Low Tide, draws from that experience to offer a darkly comedic look at boardroom politics, activist investors, and the surreal reality of watching market forces rewrite a company’s fate in real time.
Before skewering corporate culture, Hamlin spent nearly a decade in Nashville’s music scene with Arista Records and Sony Music Publishing. Hamlin studied Music Composition and History at the University of Virginia, earning his BA in 1990. After receiving his MBA from Harvard University in 1997, he climbed the ranks in retail and e-commerce, serving as EVP, CMO and GM of e- Commerce at Guitar Center, EVP and CMO at Tailored Brands, and EVP and Chief Customer Officer at GameStop. In addition to writing, Hamlin lends his expertise to boards and arts organizations, including the Dallas Theater Center and the University of Virginia, where he champions leadership development and courageous discourse through the Causeways Program.
