Creating a story set in one neighborhood can be challenging enough. Austin writer Scott Semegran, however, has added one more compelling twist to his entertaining and mood-lifting new novel, Starman After Midnight. Amid his numbered chapters, he has interspersed some separate, titled short stories that help reveal a neighborhood and its residents from different angles. The result is a darkly comic and sometimes surreal portrait of a politically and racially mixed, middle-class Austin enclave. And a key underlying theme emerges, essential in this time of sharp divisions: People of all stripes can get along if they just sit down and actually listen to each other.

 The two central characters in Starman After Midnight are a mismatched pair of next-door neighbors: Seff, a progressive-minded writer, and Big Dave, an ultra-conservative plumber and handyman with a “deeply held belief that Texas should secede from the United States of America.” Initially, the two men do not like each other. But, Semegran writes, the more they encounter each other and deal with neighborhood events and topics, the more Seff realizes Big Dave is “hardworking, could be gracious, could be sacrificial, and most definitely would give the shirt off his back to anyone he considered a friend. This gun-loving, conspiracy theory spreading, God-fearing, conservative values-spewing, beer drinking, coffee-gulping, lawnmowing, loudmouth of a neighbor was a walking contradiction, but he had somehow become our friend.”

Big Dave, in turn, sometimes refers to Seff as his “weird friend.” In more heated discussions, he calls Seff “Mr. Plato Gobble-de-gook” or simply “Plato.” Seff occasionally tries to convince Big Dave to read more and open his mind. But Big Dave firmly retorts that he reads and trusts nothing except the Farmers’ Almanac.

The two men gradually deepen their fragile friendship in sessions where they sit in one or the other’s garage drinking beers while swapping stories and personal views—within limits. Big Dave is the neighborhood handyman that other neighbors call when they need help with a problem or appliance. He’s also the neighborhood “prepper” who is quick to share some of his stored food and water when weather disasters hit his block.
 

Seff and his wife, Laura Ann, still somewhat new to the area, have a happy—and lusty—marriage. Laura Ann also helps Seff stay grounded and focused. Big Dave is less lucky; his wife stays mostly in the background. Occasional short chapters (sometimes presented in poetry format) bring more neighbors of different races and nationalities into the story. And two odd events eventually stir Dave, Seff, and a few of the neighbors to form an ad hoc posse. Several small pets recently have been found dead or have gone missing, and someone unidentified has been seen wandering around the neighborhood late at night stark naked. The posse starts calling him “Starman” for reasons much earthier than any connections to astronomy or space travel.

The events that happen next are not what the agitated neighbors have expected. And this highlights another underlying theme in the novel: “Things are not always what they seem.”   

Semegran’s smooth, clear prose offers refreshing and absorbing reading. (A few graphic words and scenes may tweak some delicate sensibilities.) Starman After Midnight is Semegran’s tenth book. He began writing right after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. And, while some of the books he has composed as an independent author have won prestigious awards, he did not sign with a literary agent until 2023, at age 51. In most of his works, he recently told CanvasRebel magazine, “the power of friendship” is a key element of his stories, and he is also partial to “a thorny odd-couple dynamic and how people with vast differences have more in common than they realize.”

Seff and Big Dave definitely provide that “thorny odd-couple dynamic” in Starman After Midnight.