Mickey Z

Cool Observer

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Saturday, December 01, 2007

"CPR for Dummies"

After five non-fiction books, I’m finally a “real” novelist. Raw Dog Screaming Press is going to publish my anti-novel, CPR for Dummies, in June 2008. Here’s how I pitched it:

An innovative story that challenges the traditional novel structure, CPR for Dummies cleverly weaves together dozens of extraordinary episodes populated by an abnormal assortment of unconventional inhabitants, e.g. a wannabe actress-turned-messiah, a homeless seer, a bodybuilding priest, a porn writer who seduces a grandmother, a church bell that hasn’t rung since the U.S. dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima, and many more. These characters come to life against the belligerent backdrop of an impassioned anti-nukes rally…on the hottest day of the year (all as a monstrous meteor ominously approaches the earth’s atmosphere).

This non-linear, offbeat tale is told through flashbacks, diary entries, first person interludes, and related vignettes that suddenly stray off to interject back-stories, underlying themes, and secondary segues to create context and flavor. CPR for Dummies is tough to describe because it is as much an “anti-novel” as novel. It deconstructs the form in the way Jackson Pollock shattered painterly illusions. To call it a novel is like using the word film to describe something Andy Warhol shot.

CPR for Dummies is funny, challenging, quirky, political, perverted, and guaranteed to provoke a response.

The End