Was tagged my j/j hastain AND Laura Woltag!, so here goes. Thanks j/j and Laura!!
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What is the title of the book?
Inversion Twilight
Where did the idea come from for the book?
It is actually part of a larger manuscript called Anti-Oedipus, and so I got the idea obviously from Anti-Oedipus. My previous book, The Incompossible, was a sort of translation (of abstract language into more concrete imagery, not French to English) from Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, and I enjoyed working with philosophy/theory so much I wanted to keep doing it. This time around, instead of translating philosophy into concrete imagery, I used the language from the Deleuze & Guattari text itself, collaged them together, and then in an effort to keep it from being too, too dense, I also wove in writings I did while listening to ambient music. Towards the end I deleted out a lot of the Deleuze & Guattari language as it really was too dense, so there is a sort of palimpsest of their writing with my own written over it.
What genre does your book fall under?
Epithalamium.
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Although I envision Anti-Oedipus as female, I could imagine her being played by Jonathan Caouette in drag. I'm in (supposedly, I haven't seen it yet) about 5 minutes of his newest film Walk Away Renee. So.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Disjunctions and desire-machines, voicing what cannot be voiced that in the end can be, and the terrible, joyful process of becoming-schizo.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Have been writing and rewriting since 2008. For the most part I have been happy with the text, but have had quite a difficult time finding its form as a whole. I was unsatisfied with The Incompossible's unitary prose-poems (although it seemed to be necessary at the time) and so wanted everything in this book to be constantly different and evolving, in flux. (However this will not be apparent in the chapbook coming out.)
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Deleuze and Guattari obviously, but also on a personal level, the ending (an evolving process) of wanting what I cannot have, and the anti-oedipal, anti-capitalist path of finding a way towards having what I do have, or how having itself becomes unnecessary. Or how not having is a type of having, or finding a way towards having and not having simultaneously.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Mythology's invisible footprint, fighting the suicidal impulse, identity, writing as meta-life.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Birds of Lace is putting out Inversion Twilight this coming April.
Tagging: Amy Berkowitz, Sara Larsen, Suzanne Stein, Lara Durback, Erica Lewis
