Christopher Barzak Walks the Plank
I wondered why a marvelous writer and person like Christopher Barzak had to make due with just one Barzak Day, as chronicled by Matt Cheney. The answer, of course, is that he doesn’t have to make due. Thus, I made him walk the plank and answer the five questions, knowing I would squirrel the results away until well after Barzak Day was supposedly over. Note the Zen-like simplicity with which he deftly deflects some of the interrogatories…
Anyway, Barzak’s first novel, One For Sorrow, is now out from Bantam-Spectra, and you should definitely check it out.
Why should readers pick up your book as opposed to, say, just about anybody else’s book?
It’s pretty light, and, um, it has lilac on the cover, which Kelly Link told me is supposed to be the most popular color this year?
Does your book have any socially redeeming qualities? If so, what are they?
I’m not sure what socially redeeming qualities are, but maybe! It’s funny and sad and scary and a little rough around the edges like it’s narrator, and at its heart it’s a story that looks for light in a dark world, I hope.
Does your book have any medicinal or mental health value to readers?
Possibly!
Assume your book has been filed under “Ages 8 to 12″ in the children’s section, perhaps by mistake, perhaps not. How horrified do you imagine a child would be after reading your book, and why? How many years of therapy would the child take to recover from the experience?
I’m not sure they’d be extremely horrified so much as they would think they should hide it from their parents because of some of the language and adult situations. They’ll probably need more recovery time from life than they would from reading my book.
If no one buys your book and you are unable to continue publishing your fiction due to the intense vilification that occurs in the media, what line of work will you go into?
Karaoke master on a cruise ship. I probably should have done that anyway!
September 18, 2007 at 3:29 pm
The interview style reminds me a bit of The Onion AV Club’s “Justify Your Existence” series they used to do.
September 18, 2007 at 10:37 pm
[...] Christopher Barzak’s Meditations in an Emergency « Yatterings Interview Walking the plank: the Zen Edition September 18th, 2007 Jeff Vandermeer does interviews with authors who have books that have recently come out.  He calls his interview series Walking the Plank, and asks the writer questions in an interrogative form similar to that of being stuck out on a plank with many pirates pointing their sharp swords into your chest or back, depending on the pirates. I am totally the wrong person to place on a plank though; if pirates set me out on one, I would probably just jump into the ocean of my own free will because that’s how I roll.  Or I would attempt to evade their interrogation by answering with zen-like koans, in an attempt to confuse them. And so, since there is no ocean to jump into online, my plank interview on Jeff’s blog is decidedly evasive and zen-like. You can read it by clicking here. [...]