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...You, and Them
March 25, 2008

Just put the finishing touches on a Q&A with author Darin Strauss, whose third novel, More Than It Hurts You, pubs with Dutton in June.

Here are a few things I couldn't fit:

Strauss sold the movie rights to his first novel, Chang & Eng, to Gary Oldman, and the two have been working together to develop the book (based on the lives of the two men who were the first to be called "Siamese twins") for the screen.

The acknowledgements for the new book mention "my twin sons, who aren't born as I write this, but who'll be at least six-months-old by the time you read it."  They're newborns now, and I heard them making themselves known (as well as hearing them in Strauss's happily sleep-deprived voice).  The 18-city tour will go ahead as planned, "it's one of those things. You're bummed out that you have to do it, but you'd be bummed out if you didn't have to do it."

The recent novel Them, by Nathan McCall, touches on some of the same issues (i.e., American black-white relations) as More Than..., using Atlanta gentrification as its flash point.  Would love to see these two authors do a New Yorker-style event somewhere where they interview each other.

Strauss on watching the Obama speech with a professional:
"My wife is a political correspondent.  She covered the John Kerry campaign for Newsweek, so she was on the plane the whole time, and she got to see all of his speeches.  She's an incredibly cynical reporter, like they all are.  And watching the Obama speech with her, she said her cynicism kind of... cracked.  It was incredible watching an American politician talk to Americans as adults.  It was so surprising."

Posted by Michael Scharf on March 25, 2008 | Comments (0)