Wherein we are Loren Kleinman Orphans interview and most endlessly appreciative for that.

Truth. More truth? The Kleinman is totally rock star. Excerpt? Cool.

LK: Did you know the titles of your books before you started writing?

BT: No, I had actually briefly fixated on the working title Blue Legs because in the opening scene the protagonist is on a sales call with a potential client who has blue legs. I liked the idea that blue legs would seem weird and imply this book was going to be something different than I usually write, though maybe not exactly so. I also liked the idea that blue legs would be cold to the touch, yet still kind of sexy. To me anyway, I love skin. Later in Orphans the reader learns more about why characters in this story might have blue skin, though by that point, I had moved on to the idea of titling it Orphans, with my focus on the idea that the characters in this book are all orphaned, by family, work, or society.

This Book Will Change Your Life - The Infects by Sean Beaudoin.

We well understand that zombies are this year's black. Vampires. Or whatever. And we dig it. We also understand that monsters in general, and maybe even zombies in particular, come to represent the socio-political issues of the day. That even in a society where violent crime is on a downswing, we live in a twenty-four hour, seven days a week, media world fraught with war, violent uprisings, and yes, school massacres, that we just cannot make sense of, much less escape, the need to fight a living dead that emerges from mysterious, possibly even nefarious circumstances, just makes sense in terms of popular entertainment and escapism. Which brings us to The Infects by Sean Beaudoin, which is yes, about zombies, zombies, who are at least partially, maybe wholly, a result of corporate malfeasance, a topic as current as any. But deconstructing zombies is not the same as talking about one's reaction to a book, even when said book does such a nice job of both hewing to the understood parameters of zombie culture and mocking them. So, what we will say is this, what is most entertaining about the wildly entertaining Infects is just how much fun it is. The Infects is full of humor, snappy dialogue, and knowing pop culture riffs, and while reminding us of what Patrick Wensink did best with Broken Piano for President and its takedown of corporate culture and its hold on the country, what it truly reminds us of is Lynda Barry's Cruddy, possibly the most fun we've recently had reading a book of any kind. This kind of fun is a gift, and writing it requires craft, and reading The Infects we were reminded that not only do we need to read more books like this, the culture needs more books like this, now especially, but at any time. They not only allow us escape, they just might change our lives as well. If only for a moment at that.       

TBWCYL, Inc.'s Top Ten Books of the Decade Will Change Your Life.

Are we jumping on the decade-ending bandwagon? Way. Still, when your goal is to change lives, its not always clear how you're going to accomplish this. So, as we began prepare our year-end Top Ten lists we started thinking about the last decade as well and like everybody else we thought we would weigh-in on what we liked and/or influenced us and/or brought us joy. Over this week we are going to hit books, movies, television and music. And then next week, or shortly thereafter, we will begin rolling-out our year-end lists. Cool? Great.

(1) Cruddy by Lynda Barry (2000). There is maybe no book other than The Basketball Diaries that we aspire to writing more.

(2) Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (2000). Fathers, sons, pain. And killer graphics.

(3) American Skin by Don De Grazia (2000). Quite simply, we read this and we believed we could write the book that would become Lucky Man.

(4) Radiant Days by Michael A. Fitzgerald (2007). A debut novel like few others. All hail the Fitzgerald.

(5) Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Nico Henrichon (2006). War is hell. And then some.

(6) Hairstyles of the Damned by Joe Meno (2004). Compulsively readable and we don't care what Jason Pettus thinks about that.

(7) Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (2004). Pop culture as an endlessly humorous intellectual exercise.

(8) Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (2006). Uhhhm, wow.

(9) When The Messenger is Hot by Elizabeth Crane (2004). Short stories, slamming and true, not to mention the inspiration for the delightful Ms. Crane becoming the long-time muse for this blog.

(10) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000). Too good. We never understood why people hate on the Eggers and we still don't.

The next twelve (in no particular order): Vacation by Jeremy Shipp (2007), Breaking it Down by Rusty Barnes (2007), Black Flies by Shannon Burke (2008), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000), Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball (2008), Half Empty by Tim Hall (2004), Stories by Scott McClanahan (2008), The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli by Ginetta Correli (2008), Three Fallen Women by Amy Guth (2006), Bughouse by Steve Lafler (2001), The Love Book by Ken Wohlrob (2007), Talk: A Novel in Dialogue by Corey Mesler (2002).

And finally, as we worked on this list we were struck by how many of these books came out around 2000 and that there was even some other work we hoped we would be able to include such as Naked by David Sedaris (1998) and Meditations from a Movable Chair by Andre Dubus (1999) that as turns out came out just prior to the new Millenium. But then it hit us, we started writing around 1999 and during those first few years as we tried to find some traction many of these authors pointed the way and gave us hope, not because we thought we could be as good as them, but because what they wrote about spoke to us and spoke to what we hoped to write ourselves.

Good stuff.

Fun, interesting, fascinating, sad and frustrating - perhaps. Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine gets Reading Frenzy'd. And likes it. A lot.

We are really thrilled to have received a quite kind review of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine from LuAnn and the fine folks at Reading Frenzy. We also answered some questions for them and while we are not entirely sure if the review or interview will change your life, we are definitely sure that they changed ours. Thanks again to LuAnn for the interest and for brief excerpts of both feel free to read more below. Yeah, like right below.

Review:

"This really was an enjoyable read. In fact, I had it done in one day because I just couldn't put it down until I found out what was going to happen to these kids."

Interview:

Who has influenced you the most in your writing career?

"This is a tricky and great question. On the one hand, I need to say, Jim Carroll who wrote “The Basketball Diaries,” among other books, because after I read it for the first time, I really felt like I had experienced how writing can transport people somewhere other than where they are and I wanted to be able to do that. I would also say Don DeGrazia, who is the author of “American Skin” because after seeing him read “American Skin” and then reading the book, I really believed for the first time that writing a novel was possible. And then there is Lynda Barry, mainly because I have a big crush on her, but also because I once heard her say she doesn’t plan what she writes, she just writes whatever she’s feeling that day, which I love, and because someday, I want to write a book like “Cruddy,” which I also love. A lot.

I also need to mention the influence of the Ramones and punk music in general, keep it short and slamming, no fat; Bruce Springsteen, tell stories that are sparse and evocative; David Cronenberg, because of the way he described creating a “History of Violence,” particularly the violence itself, fast, intimate and up close, which is how I like to think people interact in relationships; and finally, the Beastie Boys, try to be smart, try to be interesting and don’t forget the humor."

Writing the Unthinkable rocks it. Totally.

Yes, its true, we have been slightly off of the radar the last few days, and we've missed you, we really have. But it was worth it, totally worth it. We have been attending Writing the Unthinkable, the most awesome two-day writing workshop extravaganza hosted by the equally awesome Lynda Barry author of among many, many other things, Cruddy, one of our all-time favorite novels. And so you may ask, did it rock? Way. Did we write like mad? Totally. Was Kelly Hogan, the Kelly Hogan, who we have a newly enormous crush on, there helping out? Yes, and was that cool, yes, too cool. And finally, is there anything else we think you need to know? Just this, it occurred to us this morning, that if we ever write our loosely visualized fourth book, the stuff we wrote during the last two days is going to be all over it. For real.