The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Thousand Natural Shocks by Omar Hussain

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

A Thousand Natural Shocks by Omar Hussain https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Natural-Shocks-Omar-Hussain/dp/B0DJG1P9GY Named one of Murder & Mayhem's Most Anticipated Mystery, Thriller, and Crime Books of 2025 Named a Goodreads Best Thriller & Mystery of 2025 Omar Hussain's dazzling debut, A Thousand Natural Shocks, is a mesmerizing meditation on trauma, memory, and identity wrapped in a high-octane thriller. Dash, a reporter in Monterey, California, is desperate to outrun his past. During the day, he investigates the reemergence of a long-dormant serial killer. At night, he has become entangled with a criminal cult that promises a pill to erase his traumatic memory. But as Dash begins to lose his memories--and his sense of self--he discovers a dark secret about the cult, one that would horrify its members. And soon he finds himself in a race against time to evade the cult, unveil the killer, and reconcile his past before his own memories fade away ...

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with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, the earliest things that makes it official, welcome to the show as always the Chris Foss show is a family that loves you and doesn't judge you at least on as harshly as the rest of the world.

Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss won on the TikTok and he all those crazy places in it. Terry amazing young man on the show. We're talking about his new book that's out May 6th, 2025. It is called A Thousand Natural Shocks. Omar Hussain joins us on the show today. We're going to get into with him and talk about his new book, What's Inside of It. Omar is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He holds an MFA in creative writing from NYU. His debut novel, A Thousand Natural Sharks, which is recently named by Seattle Times, is a thrilling debut to pick up the Spring Book Bub as one of the best mystery and thrillers

of Spring 2025. Goodreads is one of the 2025's biggest mysteries and thrillers. Criminal Element as one of the unmissable mysteries of 2025, and A Strand magazine's best of Spring pick, and one of Murder Mayhem's most anticipated mystery books of 2025 and A Strand magazine's best of spring pick and one of Murder Mayhem's most anticipated mystery books of 2025. His short fiction has been published in over a dozen literary journals, including Jellyfish Review, X-Ray Magazine, and Dream Noir, among others. Welcome to the show, Omar. How are you? Omar Malik I'm doing great, Chris. Thanks for having

me. Chris Thanks for coming. We really appreciate it. Give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Omar underscore r underscore Hussain on Instagram I'm on X just at Omar Hussain and that's that's it for right now And so give us a 30,000 over review. What's in the book? Yeah. Yeah so thousand natural shocks really for, begins as like a series of conceptual questions. Really, I wrote it trying to answer these three questions, which are

as follows. If you could forget your life's biggest regret or worst memory, would you? And if you did, would it change you? And as it was changing you, would you have any control over what you became next? And so with that, the book follows Dash as a journalist in Monterey, California, who's after the answers to these questions and so doing becomes entangled in a cult-like organization. He knows it's a cult, but it goes along with it anyway, because they offer an alluring transaction, really, they're offering four pills, that one taken once a week erase a quarter of your memory, starting with your earliest memory in life moving toward the present. In exchange for those pills, though, he has to do some fairly nefarious things for them. And while this is happening, there's a mysterious figure. It feels familiar in some ways, but he can't quite place any specifics with it.

But that's, and this figure is stalking him. And as matters with the cult and this figure are intensifying, he stumbles onto the truth of what's going on with the cult-like organization. And at that moment Dash really has to figure out what he wants to be and really what it means to be good. What does it mean to be good vis-a-vis the memory he wants to forget? And what does it mean to be good in contrast to all the chaos he's created to that point? And the answer to those questions are the key for him unlocking his own madness, really. Pete Slauson Oh, wow. I mean, this is a pretty unique plot, right? You've come up with here, I think. Jared Slauson There's a lot going on. I mean, there's certainly strands here. I mean, there's the piece with the cult, there's the piece with the serious figure

that, you know, kind of turns into a bit of a dormant serial killer of Monterey, California, known as the Coast Killer in the book. And yeah, he's trying to balance all this while rebooting his life. I mean, it'd be a great way to get out of the trauma of your childhood. It seems, you know, we talk about it a lot on the show with psychologists today, these days,

childhood trauma and stuff. And so it'd be kind of cool if you could erase maybe, I don't know, I guess you'd have to erase everything, right? In your, with the first pill, right? You erase is the first, uh, the first quarter. Yeah. So that's the deal. He doesn't get to just remove that one memory. Yeah. You just wipe it off. Yeah. And they promised to start him. They promised to start anybody who goes through this often a new location under

new alias and new kind of fully set but you don't know you know what happened in your your previous you know timeless planet they fill your head with something different oh wow this sounds pretty interesting I know how to marry guys who like to take this pill so pretty good how what inspired you to come up with this devious plot? Omar Salaam Well, I think there's a few things. I mean, Pete Slauson Who heard you, Omar? Omar Salaam Yeah, right. Let's get into that on a podcast. You know, the story was sort of a part of the story, the part where there's this mysterious

figure stalking him in Monterey, California, which is where I lived for about six or seven years. I grew up in California. The last six years I lived in the state was in Monterey, California, which is where I lived for about six or seven years. I grew up in California and the last six years I lived in the state was in Monterey. And, you know, everyone thinks about the town in a very idyllic kind of coastal, beautiful beach setting, you know, awesome houses overlooking the ocean kind of thing. And that is true. And it is kind of a very soft landing spot if you can manage it. But there is something super gritty about Monterey. It gets really creepy at night. And I always thought that if you positioned the area well, it could it could serve as excellent setting fodder for a story like this.

And, you know, one night, one night I was out walking and I used to I don't do so much anymore. But I mean, I used to either run or go do so much anymore, but I, I mean, I used to either run or go for walks like one, two, three in the morning. And, uh, I was checking out this used car dealership in, uh, kind of right on the edge of we're monitoring and the next town overseas side reside. And as I was walking back, I kept hearing something behind me and I kept like, you know, you just, your mind starts playing tricks. And you're like, and I saw a figure, like the outline of a shadow kind of crossed over

back behind the main dealerships, like building. And then I thought that was funky. I crossed the street, kept going, kept looking over shoulder. I saw it again one more time and that was it. And I just thought, well, that's maybe a short story or something. And I kept it in the back of my head. And, you know, the more I thought about like, the premise of trauma or regret, you know, and like the idea, well, what would, how far would someone be willing to go to get rid of these things? Like kind of, or what would they be willing to do?

Right? Correct. Like how much, if there's a selling your soul element to it, what would you be willing to trade? And kind of reminds me of that button. You ever see that there's kind of a little movies that go around and they're like, if you press this button, you'll kill a random human being, but, and then the person hits it before I remember this movie, I didn't see it. I, there was like in the mid two thousands. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The people with the button, you're like, wait, I didn't tell you what you get Yeah, right, and then they hit it a couple more times. They're like stop it Yeah, only real certain people just press it as many times as possible get rid of the one or two people they want out of their lives. I Mean can you give the pill to I don't want to blow any plot lines or anything. So stop me if that's not right. But can you give the pill to maybe people you don't like?

There's no, no, no, there's no drugging. I'm thinking of thinking I could give this pill to my siblings and they might forget that. Yeah. Yeah. That or I really need to forget I was, I had to be raised around them, but, uh, you can write the sequel then. Yeah. I, I, this sounds like, uh, this is a series here going on, you know, part one

and two, uh, you can drug other people with, oh, that's going to end badly. Uh, that takes a whole date, rape, drug to all the next level. If you're a race of people's lives, but I don't know. Uh, you know, I, I run a big dating group of 5,000 people and a lot of, date rape drug to the next level if you're erasing people's lives. But I don't know. You know, I run a big dating group of 5,000 people and a lot of, you know, like we talk about in the show is the way people are is shaped by what happens in their childhood. So now I guess let me ask this in the book, yeah, this may be hypothetical or just for fun entertainment. But if you get rid of that portion of your life, do you change as a person or do you become that other person that they set you up with?

Jared Sissling That's really, that's kind of the philosophical question that undergirds the book. I mean, so, not to get too nerdy here, but you know, like one of the things that I thought was super interesting is, you know, existentialism, like the crux of it is our exist, we exist, and then our experiences determine who we are, right? But what happens if halfway through our lives, we removed our knowledge of those experiences, then what are we like, would there be any like traces of it that would still persist even if you got rid of it? And so that's what the book's

on a very thematic level trying to figure out. Pete This would make one of those wild movies like Inception. Was it Inception? You know, one of those movies where they're jumping timelines and going through stuff. This would make a great movie, man. I think so. And it's been very popular, A Thousand Natural Shocks. Can you allude to us, tease out or tell us what the title means or do we need to buy the book? No, no, I can take it to a certain line without spoiling a thing, but really, I mean, it's actually not mine. I stole from William Shakespeare. It's from the famous Hamlet soliloquy that to be or not to be one it's like on the sixth or seventh line. And it's the thousand natural shocks of grief and sorrow. And yeah, I mean, I, that was probably like the 59th title I had for the book. And it was the one

that stuck. And if once you read read the book and you get past a certain point like the parallels between Hamlet and this book, I think maybe, I mean, there's not a ton of them, but there, but there's a couple of very key ones. And it's billed as a fast paced mystery, dark secrets, cults, killers, sounds like Utah. Not sure what that means. You know, it's it's built in that space. But I mean, it's funny, you mentioned inception earlier, because, you know, my head, I was thinking I really wanted this book to. Sure, if you're looking for like a thriller, you know, or something along those lines, there's elements of like even sci fi or speculative, but if you're looking for that, it can scratch that itch.

If you're looking for something literary and philosophical, I'd like to think it can do that too. Or if you're just looking to read something, I think fun, it does that. And so like for me, Christopher Nolan's films are like maybe the best cinematic example of something like that, where you watch even the Batman ones. Like,

there's stuff going on on a deeper level if you want to think about it long after. If you just want popcorn and two hours of entertainment, it can do that. So, I would like to think that the book operates on a few different levels for the audience. Pete Slauson Chris, if you know me, you can pick it up on the option there. Chris Where can I sign? Yeah. Where can I sign? Yeah. But yeah, I think, I mean, it's definitely, you know, we interview a lot of novelists

and that's a really unique novel. It's kind of making the hair stand a little bit on my arms. And I haven't even read the book yet. So when did you first, now this is your first book, if I understand it correctly, right? Yeah. When did you first know that you were a writer and started writing? I think you did some things, we mentioned the bio. And then when did you, you know, what led you up to this book to where you're like,

I'm going to write a book and it's going to go big. You know, I, I don't know. That's a hard one to trace. I mean, like, Did you take one of those pills? You forgot already. Yeah, no, I know. I one of those pills. You forgot already. No, I know.

I just don't. Where do I start this answer? I guess like, you know, when I was nine years old, Mark McGuire was my favorite baseball player and I went to the library and I wanted like, I think I had an assignment in school or you had to read a biography. And so I was like, well, I want to read

a Mark McGuire biography. He was in the middle of his career pre, you know steroid scandal and I went to the Cupertino library. They didn't have any biographies on him and I soon realized nobody had written one on him and So I was like I was only nine and I was like, well, I'm alright it and So I started handwriting I got 42 pages in as a nine-year-old and I just kind of ran out of content. All I was doing was looking at the back of his baseball cards and like each year

I was like creating stories for the stat lines, you know, I'm like pairing it with what the Oakland A's did. So I knew I like it was always a very entertaining thing. And then when I was in college, I don't really know what made me think that this was the landmark goal, but I thought if I could finish a Full-length manuscript before I graduate that probably means I've got something here you know like something worth and so I I did was it was a was a more of a satire deal, but Finished it didn't really know what to do with it and it's kind of like sat around not really knowing how to because like becoming a published novelist isn't like becoming an executive in a company.

Like I can't get an entry-level job and become a middle manager and then a director and a VP. So I didn't know really how to climb that ladder. And so like you mentioned, I thought well, what I'll do is I'll turn to short stories. And if I can start getting published in more selective journals, it means I'm getting better and better and better, and then I could be ready to submit a new book that is indicative of whatever skill or mastery I obtained. And that's what I did. And it just took a number of years and a lot of early mornings and late nights. Pete Slauson Well, you stuck with it. How many years would you say? So, if there's any aspiring that just took a number of years and a lot of early mornings and late nights. Pete Well, you stuck with it. How many years would you say? So, if there's any aspiring

writers out there, they can kind of take a page out of your book there. Jared From the time I started writing that first one I was mentioning in college to today, that's 20 years. Pete Wow. Folks, it's never too late. Get in there. Start writing. The key is to start writing. What would you say to aspiring writers? What is the key to becoming an author and putting out a successful piece of work like you have? I mean, clearly people are loving it. They're giving you great reviews and all that good stuff. I think first fundamentally, since there's so many points along the journey that

are going to tell you to stop, you bet you have to start doing it just because it's really really fun. Yeah, like it has to be something that there's so many other things to do in this life, but if that's the one thing that's gonna bring you some kind of like it's gonna light you up somehow you can kind of get high off of it. That should be number one. And then number two, every time you sit down to write it's gotta be to get just a little bit better. Like one sentence that was better today than it would have been yesterday. And then the last thing I guess I would say is like, don't wait for inspiration.

It's a daily, it's daily work. Like even if you like you've walked to your computer or your notebook saying, I don't have anything good in me today. That's fine. But you have to put words down because it's not going to get done any other way. I've seen that movie where you, where you have to, you know, sometimes you just write blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'll work in no play makes Jack and old boys sort of shit. You know, well, today's like, fuck you day. So we'll try again tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, it's like after you it's kind of like clay after you start to kind of form a kind of outline or model, it starts to come together. Is that you would you say that's correct? Yeah, I think it's like anything else.

I mean, the more you do something, the better you get at it. So today's or yesterday's like challenges aren't as difficult to work through today and it just kind of keeps building. And then I think the other thing too is writers or anybody creating tends to be really hard on themselves. So like you finish something one day and you're like, that sucked. You come back like five or six weeks later, like, you know, I can work with that. You know, it's not it's not perfect But I can I can kind of tweak that and it's all not bad at all Yeah and and you know and then you kind of start playing that game where you're like move this part over there and

You know it kind of becomes like this puzzle thing where you're like, oh this you move that over there And then it all starts, you know turn into something, you know, totally one puzzle piece at a time But you have to put those pieces on the table. So, you know, I, I, I remember I was the one who survived my, uh, we had a accountability, uh, author group and we all trying to write our first book and we, and there was like five of us in the group and I was the one who would do what I called puking on the page. And I would just, and fortunately, you know, I was kind of lucky.

I've had at least stories of care around most of my life. And so I was able to, you know, I kind of knew the stories because I'd been telling them to people and boring them forever at parties. And so I would just puke it onto the page and I just keep puking. And I realized that there was an editing process because, you know, we've done the show, you know, how the editing process kind of works. And I'm like, the editing's for later. Just get it all out there.

Get it while it's hot. Put that stuff down. And my friends would just, they'd write like a line, you know, like, it was the best of time. Well, was it really? Well, maybe it was the best, you know. They would like edit like every fucking thing. Yeah.

And they'd be like, how much you write today, Chris? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Like 10 pages. And they're like, uh, really? We're still working on the first sentence and title of the book. And I'm like, you guys got to quit editing on, on the flow. Yeah.

Not later. Just get it. Like you say, the puzzle pieces on the table and and then you can look around and it helps you build too. Like it helps you fill in all the pieces and connect the dots, as it were. And I was the only one who survived that accountability group. They were all gone within about a month or two. And eventually, I think one of them put a book out, I think the other one's going to put a book out soon, five years later. But, but no, no shame. Yeah.

Just get it out, man. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter how long it takes, but, uh, yeah, it was really interesting to me. And so I always tell people that advice. I'm like, you know, puke, I call it the, I call it the puke process. Barf it on the page. You know, I, all the comments, like they would worry about where the commas and the periods were whether or

not the first thing was capitalized. And I was just like blasting shit so much that I'm like, what did I write here? It's completely misspelled. Totally. Yeah, you know, one thing too is like, I think the paralysis by analysis, kind of thing that you're talking about happens a lot too, when people are like the project or the book they're trying to write right now in their minds is the only thing they're ever going to write in their life. And it's just like, you know, um,

the mistakes you make on this project are going to be why you're successful in the next one. So it's like, try to think of it as like the long range too, you know, like you're, you have to make these mistakes in order to get better. So just go, just, just make the mistakes. It's kind of like entrepreneurism. Like when you start a company, you know, there's, I would meet people, they're like, Hey, I'm going to start a company like you, Chris. I'm like, we'll do it. And like, well, I have to wait till everything's perfect. I have, everything's lined up and right. And I want to make sure that if I start it, it's right. And it's like, no, you, you have to get in the shit.

You have to jump into the pit of lions and whatever, and figure a way out on the fly and that's the only way you're going to learn. And then plus it's problem solving. Probably the imagine writing books is a lot like problem solving in a business. You're constantly solving problems that is advances. You're like, okay, well, where's the plot line go from here? Where's it, you know, where's this character, yada, yada, yada. And so you got to get in there because it's really just that. That's what it is a process of problem solving. Definitely. And

it's a good advice. Sounds like you have it as well. Well, I learned it from business. So I've started, I've started a company or two and, and, uh, gone broke doing a couple. What else do we want to promote while you're here? Is there any, uh, any other things you do maybe on your website? Any advice you give people, uh, maybe in consulting or coaching, uh, anything more we want to promote for you? I have no more advice to give and no coaching to offer. I pull my book out.

You know, the problem with writing a book is as soon as you launch it on on launch day, they go, so what are we doing next? Oh, I know. Yeah, right. Or like, when is the like, you're just like, I just got here. I just got birthed. Exactly. I'm like, there's a fatigue already. And they're like, come on, where's the next 400 pages? Let's go buddy. 50,000 words. So that does lead me to my next question. Uh, what's the future is any, any books coming out of the pike? Anything we want to tease out for future projects? Uh, I, for sure.

I kind of see the, the writing career kind of bouncing back and forth between darker stuff, lighter stuff. And so I'm wrapping up a project, a book right now that I think is gonna, you know, more toward the lighter stuff, but it's that I think is gonna, you know, more toward the lighter stuff, but it's still a ways away before, you know, I give my agent and I start working on it. And that being said, you know, when it comes to natural, a thousand natural shocks, there's room for that story as well if people want it. Pete Slauson Yeah, I got the title for your second book.

2000! for your second book. 2000. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. I like it. Double the shock. Double the shock. Yeah. They do that kind of kitschy stuff in Hollywood. Uh, so why I want to see, uh, I want to see it picked up and brought to the big screen. Cause I think it'd be fun. Like I said, I got a little hair raising on my arm just lying alone. There's literally maybe five authors that have done that to me where they prescribed their plot for me and I've just been like, I'm too scared to read it now. It's all right. It won't be that bad. I'll live. Yeah, you're right. So Omar, give us your dot coms where you want people to find

you on the interwebs as we go out. Yeah, Instagram is really the best. It's Omar underscore R underscore Hussein. And I'm all, it's all right there for you. Well, thank you very much Omar for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And folks order up his book where refined books are sold. It's getting lots of good reviews on the Goodreads there

and the Amazonian. Go check it out. A Thousand Natural Shocks out May 6th, 2025. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss 1, on the TikTok. And eat all those crazy places in it. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.