[Below is a real interview I recently had with polymath Gene Callahan regarding his new novel entitled PUCK. Read an excerpt: 1 2. Play the PUCK game. All transcription errors are mine. Void where prohibited.]
For those living in Lithuania and Micronesia, could you please tell us a little about your background and your whereabouts during the afternoon of November 22, 1963.
I was sitting in the motorcade car next to John Conally.
As a PhD student and a father of several children, how did you balance all these pursuits?
Kids? Crimminy, I knew I had forgotten something.
Did your kids help co-author the book? Did they design the cover?
In the sense that they had little to do with it, yes.
So what is PUCK anyways? An acronym? A cross-breed platypus-duck? A post-modern critique of Esperanto?
The Parallel Universal Consciousness Kompany. And whatever else you want it to be.
What was your inspiration for writing this?
Life, James Joyce, Homer, William Shakespeare, Henry James, J.R.R. Tolkien, Milan Kundera, Kurt Vonnegut, Albert Camus, Ken Kesey, Gustave Flaubert, F. Scott Fitzgberald, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Franz Kafka, Jay McInnery, and Stu Morgenstern’s actions at college.
In 273 syllables or less, describe how you fused Norse mythology with science fiction.
Very well, indeed.
Of the three, who is closest to your intended audience and why: South Park Republicans, MySpace Mavens or Chuck Norris?
Chuck Norris. I write for individuals, not demographic groups.
Your writings typically deal with non-fictional issues surrounding the discipline of praxeology, or human action. How did this influence PUCK?
Not consciously at all, except in one brief passage. Unconsciously probably quite a bit.
Your previous book Economics for Real People was a primer on economics and government intervention along the lines of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. Do any of the case-studies used in it serve as a backdrop for the plot in PUCK?
Sorry, no.
Is the departure from the realm of economics and history a sign of things to come, or have you planned on writing a fictional work for some time now? Do you plan on writing a sequel? If so, will there be a sing-along version?
PUCK was in progress 20 years before Economics for Real People. It is really my economic writing that has been a departure. I have three other novels in progress at present.
Are you going to take a cue from Ayn Rand and rename either yourself or any of your family members?
Oddly enough, I have renamed my pet gerbil Ayn Rand.
How did you develop the various characters such as Dr. Fitzmaurice? Personal experience? Random words drawn from a hat? Double-dare?
Strip Twister.
Is Morris a Yankees or Red Sox kind of guy? Boxers or briefs?
He likes the Mets. And he doesn’t wear underwear.
If existentialism was an inanimate object, how would it be discussed in PUCK?
It would be large, purple, and octagonal.
In the PUCK universe, is ethanol the fuel du jour?
No, methanol is.
If so, would an ethanol-powered train leaving Chicago at 3 AM Eastern time and traveling at 46 mph, still have a chance at beating afternoon rush-hour in St. Louis and meet EPA emission standards for its locomotive class?
The train will go off the rails thirty miles out of Chicago.
Do you have any plans of making this into a screen play?
I would love to.
Who would play Dr. Fitzmaurice?
Bill Murray.
Would Will Ferrell or Owen Wilson appear in it? Would anyone wear a mullet?
Owen Wilson would be cool. I ain’t so keen on Will Ferrell or mullets. What’s a mullet, anyway?
Are you working at bringing PUCK to the XBox 360 or any other gaming device?
When I’ve developed the full game version, yes.
Rumor has it that you are going on a book-promotion tour soon, where and when? Will the Ice Cream man or Weinermobile be involved?
My tour so far involves one stop at Freebird Books in Brooklyn, on August 13.
In the form of a Chinese Fortune cookie, what departing words of wisdom do you have? Lotto numbers?
3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28. Read the book and you’ll see why.