Adam Joseph "Joey" Goebel III is an American author whose work centers around the peculiarities of culture in Middle America. He was raised in Henderson, Kentucky, a small town on the Ohio River across from Evansville, Indiana. His parents, Adam Goebel of Louisville, and Nancy Bingemer Goebel of Henderson, were both social workers and met in Frankfort, Kentucky. His older sister CeCe is also a social worker. Goebel's books have been published in sixteen languages and have found their largest audience in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Goebel currently lives in Kentucky. He is divorced and has a son, Adam Joseph Goebel IV. Goebel's third novel, Commonwealth, was published on July 4, 2008. His fourth and fifth novels were published in German.
MacAdam/Cage Publishing of San Francisco published Goebel's first book The Anomalies in April 2003. The Anomalies was a Book Sense 76 title selected by the nation's independent booksellers and was nominated for the Kentucky Literary Award. Goebel's second novel, Torture the Artist, was released in October 2004, also by MacAdam/Cage. Torture the Artist was the finalist for the 2004 Kentucky Literary Award and made the long list for the Dylan Thomas Prize for 2006. In fall of 2005, Torture the Artist was published in German under the title Vincent by Diogenes Verlag, a Swiss literary publisher. Goebel attended the Frankfurt Book Fair, and he and Vincent were featured in Der Spiegel. On July 4, 2008, Goebel's third novel, Commonwealth, was published. In 2009, he was the recipient of Romania's Ovid Festival Prize, awarded to a prominent young talent In 2013, Goebel's fourth novel I Against Osborne was published in German under the title Ich gegen Osborne. It was also published in French. In 2019, Diogenes published a collection of linked stories titled Irgendwann wird es gut.The English title is I Know It's Going to Happen for You Someday.
From 1996 to 2001; prior to becoming a novelist, Goebel sang and played guitar for a punk band called The Mullets with band members Jason Sheeley and Justin Hope. The band played about one hundred shows throughout the Midwest and released two cassette tapes, a seven-inch EP record, and three Compact Discs. The band had a rabid following in the Tri-state area of Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. Goebel wrote over one hundred songs for the Mullets, some of them bitter love songs, some scoffing at his surroundings—particularly small town life, some making fun ofpopular culture, and some purely comedic.
Goebel sang and played guitar for Novembrists, with bandmates Jr. Bailey and Luke Bickers. The band stayed together for about a year, long enough to record and release a CD. They played one farewell show. Novembrists songs were a bit darker and had a few more literary allusions, such as Vladimir Nabokov and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Other work
Goebel has written several articles for the Evansville, Indiana arts and entertainment magazine News 4U.
