Q&A with Self-Help Guru Dr. Pinder Chipps, Author of "So Your Son is a Centaur"

[Photo: Dr. Pinder Chipps]

1) What was your initial reaction when your son revealed his decision to go through the "Wizard's Change" and become a centaur? Take us back to that fateful day.

My initial reaction was confusion, which was followed quickly by anger, then guilt... and finally hunger for some reason. After I ate a sandwich and spoke with parents who had gone through the same experience, I realized the Five Stages of Centaur Awareness are completely normal. The last stage, of course, is acceptance.

2) How is your relationship with your centaur son today?

I have wonderful relationships with both of my centaur sons! Just last weekend my wife and I drove out to Fabian's meadow for dinner and a movie. We watched Seabiscuit (again!). 

3) Are all centaurs lustful drunks?

Yes. Studies show that centaurs do experience higher levels of alcoholism than the greater population. My youngest son, Quintz, has been through the Program and has now been sober for three years. As he now likes to joke when going out with friends, "You can lead a centaur to a bar, but you can't make him drink!"

4) Is it considered "tacky" to ride your centaur child?

Well, personally, I think "exhilarating" is the correct term. However, my sons would be more likely to agree with you.

5) What about forcibly entering your centaur into the Kentucky Derby?

Many parents want to live vicariously through their children. However, whether it's pushing them into baseball, or ballet, or doing a series of jumps over various hurdles and ditches, it's important to remember that parents should motivate and nurture their child's interests and not their own. 

6) What advice would you give parents who are struggling to accept their centaur child?

Remember that it's not a choice. Your child was born this way - they just weren't born into the body they wanted. Once you realize being a centaur is a core part of your child's personality, it's easier to understand and accept them.

7) Is it too much to ask that your centaur child wears pants in public?

Oh, the arguments I've had on this subject! Look, it's a different culture, and there's nothing you're going to say to convince them otherwise. Some sons get a pierced ear, or a tattoo. Others have four legs and refuse to cover them with pants. After years of fighting it, I've just come to tolerate it rather than let it ruin Thanksgiving dinner.

8) What exactly are your qualifications to be giving this advice...?

I have two centaur sons and a psychology degree that I purchased from the back of a hobo's car. I'd say that's plenty qualified. 

[Photo: Obvious Plant Publications]

So Your Son is a Centaur: Coping With Your Child's Confusing Life Choices is available for purchase at Book Soup for $7,000,000. This is Dr. Pinder Chipps's first book. 

http://obviousplant.tumblr.com/post/113882163568/finally-some-books-that-cater-to-my-needs

Q&A with Adam Novak, Author of "Take Fountain"

1) I'm fascinated by Take Fountain's premise. Where did you get the idea to turn a podcast transcript into a noir novel?

I first heard the name Dollars Muttlan when a mysterious briefcase was left at an office building on Camden Drive that belonged to a desperate screenwriter who was attempting to distribute a script to a lit agent. The BHPD responded by evacuating buildings and blocking off streets in the area. The screenwriter Dollars Muttlan was questioned by BHPD and released. The briefcase was destroyed by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department bomb squad as a precaution. 

It was the suggestion of the Santa Clarita Chief of Police to call the podcast transcript between that briefcase screenwriter Dollars Muttlan and reader Larry Mersault a novel. 

Adam Novak [Photo: Aldo Mauro] 

2) Take Fountain has been compared to the work of Bret Easton Ellis and also James M. Cain. Who are your literary influences?

Leaving Las Vegas by John O'Brien. The last sentence of Michael Tolkin's The Player. Bad Sex on Speed, Pain Killers, and Happy Mutant Baby Pills by Jerry Stahl. And Bruce Wagner, the voice of Los Angeles. 

3) What about cinematic influences?

Cannibal Holocaust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiXukKBLpPA&app=desktop

4) What's next for you? Anything we should be on the lookout for?

They never did capture Dollars Muttlan. Expect to hear more from him. 

[Photo: Rare Bird]

Adam Novak will sign and discuss Take Fountain on Thursday, March 19 at 7pm. 

http://booksoup.com/adam-novak-2015

5 Questions with Author and Music Historian Andrew Grant Jackson

[Photo: Andrew Grant Jackson] 

1. So, what was so special about music in 1965? What was happening back then?

Basically the combination of the civil rights movement, Vietnam, the Pill, marijuana, LSD, and long hair on men caused a lot of people to start questioning things and demanding more personal freedom, and the musicians reflected that by creating new genres like folk rock, funk, baroque pop, and psychedelia, and experimenting with new sounds like Indian instrumentation, feedback, and distortion. Bob Dylan inspired his peers to write new kinds of lyrics for rock and pop: surreal, introspective, topical. The civil rights struggle fueled the golden age of soul. Songs began to reflect the changing morality of the Sexual Revolution. 

2. What was the scene like for female musicians in 1965?

Nina Simone accompanied herself on piano, and Odetta, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Jackie DeShannon accompanied themselves on guitar. Maureen Tucker started drumming for the Velvet Underground at the end of the year. In R&B, you had vocalists like the Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Fontella Bass, Dusty Springfield. In folk you had Marianne Faithfull, the Mamas and the Papas just starting up, We Five, the Seekers, Cher. Petula Clark had pop hits on both sides of the Atlantic.

3. Top three favorite songs that you cover in your book?

Narrowing it down to three is a killer! If you were talking about "influential" or "important" I'd say "Like a Rolling Stone," "Satisfaction," "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," or "People Get Ready." But since you're saying "favorite"... I'll change my mind tomorrow, but "Freedom Highway" by the Staple Singers, "That's the Chance I'll Have to Take" by Waylon Jennings, and "I'm Not Sayin'" by Nico. Can I add one more? The Who's "Anyhow, Anyway, Anywhere." On the book's website there's a list of my favorite 125 tracks from the year: http://www.1965book.com

4. In your opinion, have there been any other years in more recent decades that compare to 1965 in terms of new/popular music?

There aren't too many years that have a comparable level of radical innovation. 1977 had the Sex Pistols' album, Saturday Night Fever, and hip hop starting up. The whole synth revolution was the biggest change in sound - going all electronic with drum machines - but I don't think there's one year you can point to for that. 1992 you had Nirvana at the top of the charts, and Dr. Dre's The Chronic, so that was a huge era for alternative and rap. Naturally, I love the garage revival of the early 2000s. But part of the excitement of 1965 was that the music was contributing to a cultural reformation, and I don't think there's been one on that scale since the 60s. Obviously hip hop changed the culture, but that took place over a longer span of time. I don't know if you can zero in on one explosive year for it.

5. Do you sometimes feel like you were born in the wrong era?

Yes! I came of age in the era of drum machines and crack and AIDS. I would've much preferred the psychedelic early years of the Sexual Revolution with the sounds of jangle pop and classic soul and music recorded live in the studio with lots of vocal harmonies. But then I might've gotten drafted.

Andrew Grant Jackson will sign and discuss 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music on Thursday, March 12 at 7pm.

[Photo: Thomas Dunne Books]

http://www.booksoup.com/andrew-jackson-2015

On Fiction & Feminism with Author Elisa Albert

Elisa Albert [Photo: Elisa Albert]

1) Your book is fiction, but like your protagonist Ari you are also a mother in real life. How did your own experience of pregnancy/childbirth/motherhood shape the novel?

It plunged me into a world of which I'd previously had no concept, and opened my eyes. I needed an outlet for processing what I saw and felt and observed around me. Ari became my vehicle for thinking it through. It was like going to live in a foreign country. 

2) Ari is constantly struggling to incorporate her motherhood into her feminist politics. I think this belief has developed - even among feminists themselves - that birth and feminism are mutually exclusive, like you can't be a mother and also be a feminist. What do you think about that?

Feminism and motherhood have long been push/pull. There's a kind of stale understanding of both feminism and motherhood underlying that. As the poet/doula Carrie Murphy says: there's not enough birth in feminism and not enough feminism in birth. The two are in fact spectacularly intertwined, and can inform each other in fascinating ways. I recommend Adrienne Rich's "Of Woman Born" as an excellent place to start.

3) I'm sure you've heard the complaint that Ari is "too unlikeable" of a protagonist. I find this complaint interesting because - while it's true that there are some harsh elements of Ari's personality - I wouldn't say she goes as far as, say, a Bukowski or Henry Miller character, who are often glorified because they are so appalling. Do you think there's a double standard at play here?

A wild double standard, indeed. Regardless, debating the "likability" of fictional characters is a joke at this point. Bukowski and Miller and Nabokov and Roth write fucked up characters well, that's why we adore them. The writing is where it's at. What's actually unlikeable is turgid trite hesitant fearful prose, I'd venture. Written with wit and verve and lust and brains and tits and soul and heart, we can love absolutely anyone, and peek into the darkest reaches of human nature. That's what's awesome about literature. Anyway, usually the folks who cry "unlikeable" are those who just can't tolerate human frailty reflected back at themselves. 

4) Female friendships are a complex subject. Again, I think there's an incorrect assumption that all women naturally band together and are nurturing and loving to each other all of the time. There's also the opposite viewpoint - that women are judgmental, jealous, and spiteful when they're together. Where does Ari's and Mina's friendship land in all of this?

Ari and Mina have a rare and precious friendship that is absent competitiveness, insecurity, and passive-aggressive bullshit. It sucks that their kind of friendship is relatively rare, but it's also great, because it's so special. It's one of the first of its kind for Ari, so it's really vital and healing for her. 

5) I think there's been a recent movement by female artists to represent friendships between women in a more conscious and real way, like you do in your novel. Lena Dunham's "Girls" and Illana Glazer's and Abbi Jacobson's "Broad City" are two TV shows that come to mind. Can you suggest any other examples? 

I liked Hilary Mantel's "An Experiment in Love." Mary Gaitskill is good. "How Should a Person Be?" by Sheila Heti was good. Sex and the City? Laverne and Shirley? The Golden Girls? Representations of female friendship are often subplot, but they're very much there if you pay close attention. 

Elisa Albert will sign and discuss After Birth on Thursday, March 5 at 7pm. 

[Photo: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]

http://www.booksoup.com/elisa-albert-2015-revised