There are a number of books we are looking forward to reading these days, Volt by Alan Heathcock, Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter and The Bee Loud Glade by Steve Himmer, among many, but there are few books we are as excited about as alt.punk by the quite stellar Bay area rocker and author Lavinia Ludlow, who happens to have just been interviewed at Dogzplot by another author who has a book coming out we are also much excited about, Barry Graham and Nothing or Next to Nothing. Nice how that all comes together, yes? Yes.BG : For me, ALT.PUNK is a tale of brutally honest, fatalistic, twenty-first century American Naturalism. I can’t help but feel that Hazel’s entire existence is preordained, that her germophobic, socially inept personality and her narrow, semi-elitist world view were shaped well before she was conceived, and a job at Safeway and her frustrating habit of returning again and again to the same deadbeat boyfriends are all part of her inescapable destiny. Tell me why this is or is not a good assessment?
LL: You couldn’t have assessed the protagonist in a more anal, undignified, and dysfunctional manner. It was dead-on. I’ve always wanted to write a story about a bitter and jaded suburbanite putting down the unproductive complaining and taking action. My intent was to instill melodramatic teenage angst into a character that was well into adulthood, and put her in the middle of a dark-humored fast-paced entertaining novel. In this story, Hazel tucked balls into her big girl panties and got the hell out of her dead end lifestyle. Naturally, without meticulous planning, everything blew chunks in her face.
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