Barry Yourgrau is the author of numerous sick and disturbing novels such as The Sadness of Sex, Haunted Traveler: An Imaginary Memoir, Wearing Dads Head and more.
His latest, NASTYbook, is also his first book for children. It is 43 very short stories that are disgusting, disturbing and very fun.
Buy NASTYbook
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hows it going so far?
Barry Yourgrau: Its been fun but it tends to become a bit of a blur after awhile.
DRE: Ive heard that from a lot of authors.
BY: Its been getting up early and whatever but its been fun because I dont usually go to kids bookstores. Theyve been taking me to schools. I did my shtick to 200 seventh graders.
DRE: Have you ever done stuff like that for such young people?
BY: No but its not that different. What was interesting was that I had some of these stories that I thought were delightful such as the one about the boy who picks his nose and it turns into this monstrous worm and stuff. I say the opening line and all the teachers kind of grin Ooh, yuck! So its been interesting.
DRE: Did you pitch this as a kids book?
BY: Absolutely! Thats what it is! Its for everyone and itll be a series. The next one comes out as a novel next spring. But it will be a short novel. It will also have some pages in it thatll turn to Manga Comics for a bit. They told me, You just keep going. You go as far as you want and well call you back.
DRE: Some of the stuff seems kind of Roald Dahlish.
BY: Exactly, its like beyond Roald Dahl. The amazing thing is that I thought that boys would get this particularly but people bring their little eight year-old daughters with them and they love it too. They like all the nasty stuff. Someone said, Whats the difference between writing for an adult and writing for a kid? An adult author also writes for kids said, The difference is this: I write the same way I write for kids as I write for adults except better.
DRE: Since it is a kids book you kind of played with the way the book actually looks as well.
BY: Indeed, the book is upside down when you open it. Its covered with fingerprints so it looks nasty and grubby. Its got the spine the wrong way around so its quite an object. I sometimes go into bookstores and say to people, Hey wait a minute! This book is upside down! We have fun in the ways as we can.
DRE: Do you ever go to bookstores and just watch people pick it up?
BY: Havent had time for that but thats something to do. I sometimes hand the book to people and say Tell me if you figure out whats wrong with this. Some people say, I cant figure out how to open this book! The problem of dyslexia never leaves us.
It was the publishers idea to do it and I thought it might have been a little gimmicky and they said, No, we want to communicate to people that the book is not a normal book. That theres something special going on here, something strange. People get it right away. Kids like authors to just be themselves. They dont like kids books where authors write down to kids. Some things are obviously inappropriate for kids but people would rather push the envelope than not push the envelope and they really respond to a sense of authenticity. Maurice Sendak said something that rang really interesting. He said, I just write what I write. They can call it kids stuff, they can call it whatever. This is just what reflects my mind. The guy who translates my books in Japanese said it was a real interesting challenge in translating one of my books, Wearing Dads Head, because the narrators in the first person but keeps switching between child and adult sort of seamlessly and in Japanese the word for I for a kid and the word for I for an adult are two different words. He had to figure out how to do it and he finally just stuck with adult.
DRE: If something like Lemony Snicket hadnt come out, do you think it would have been harder for you to get this book out?
BY: Lemony Snicket had an immense effect on all this stuff but dont forget Lemony Snicket works out of a tradition and Ive always been a part of that. People have always been bringing up Roald Dahls name for my adult work, which is great. Quite honestly, Ive never read any Roald Dahl until finally my editor said, Look, you got to read Roald Dahl.
The Twilight Zone was a big influence on this book. Its like Twilight Zone for kids and theres a writer who really influenced The Twilight Zone besides Roald Dahl called John Collier, an adult author. Its all part of the same fantastical funny thing and Lemony Snicket just really pushed that through and opened it up hugely.
DRE: What about translating this to other mediums?
BY: I would love to. One of the things I want to do is work up like a little one man show of it. Id love to see something like a kids Twilight Zone. I think the next book; The Curse of the Tweakies would make a terrific movie.
DRE: Are the stories all connected?
BY: They all come out of a similar world but theyre not. Some kid asked me yesterday, Does the book finally get to a point? Yeah the book finally gets to the point where it tells a self-referential story about an impoverished writer of exquisite literary fiction who decides What the heck, Ill start writing for kids strictly for money. It goes on from there. It comes together quite nicely in the end.
DRE: It also seems like each story doesnt exactly follow the beginning, middle, and end structure.
BY: No and whats great when you work short is that you get to really fiddle around with how a narrative works. Sometimes they do the three act thing, sometimes they end right at the beginning, sometimes they end right in the middle and whats good about that is it strikes a gong and your own mind fills in the resonances.
DRE: Have any parents or teachers said this book is just not appropriate for kids?
BY: The opening story is about a kid whose parents announce that theyre really just too cool for him and theyre not his parents because hes just a schlub so out the door he goes. When they hear my voice reading the stuff, then they understand where its coming from. When they see the wink in the eye, then they know what its about. If they just read it flat, it looks horrendous. Theres this one story I wrote about a little panda bear that is actually an axe murderer, its a trained assassin and the kids are clamming for that story. Will you read the panda story? I said, Well, why do you like that story? Its kind of nasty and violent and they said, Oh yeah its because its so strange!
DRE: Are you friends with people who gave you the quotes like Neil Gaiman and Patrick McGrath?
BY: They approached Neil and I think he knew my work so he was generous and supportive. Patrick Ive known for a long time. Patrick and I both came out of sort of the same circles in Manhattan in the mid 80s.
DRE: I read an old quote from you from 1989 where you said that the prevailing themes in your work are family and sex. Not so much sex in this book.
BY: Well thats the one thing you have to back away from. I said to my editor, I should leave sex out, right? They said, Do whatever you want and well tell you if its too much but my sense is that if the book is for 9-12 year-olds. I love writing about sex but its not appropriate for kids. I have a story about two people who are brace wearers and fall in love and their braces lock together when they kiss and they decide to stay that way until something terrible happens. So I get into smoochy smoochy stuff but nothing more substantial.
DRE: What else are you up to?
BY: I developed this one project which is strictly in Japan where there are stories I wrote that are broadcast over cell phones. When I was over there a couple of years ago I noticed that everyone was surfing the internet on their cell phones. Its a super evolved internet cell phone culture and I said to my editors over there, Why dont we serialize stories over cell phones?
DRE: You mean like radio stories?
BY: No theyre text stories. It was great. People loved it and my editor thought they were spectacular and they were really short but again allowing you to monkey with how a narrative works.
DRE: You working on any more movies?
BY: No but for a while I worked on this project with [Monsters Ball director] Mark Forster. I knew Mark just when he was making Monsters Ball and so we decided wed work on a movie together because he liked my stuff. We both realized we really love gangster films. So I wrote up this gangster film but it was my first script ever so it suffered but I thought it was terrific I think Mark looked at it and thought What the hell is this thing!? Its just too much. But whats interesting is this next NASTYbook I wrote called The Curse of the Tweedies in a certain way, is a better of version of that script. Its a more effective, better written, clearer version. Its as whacky as that script. The script is called Toothache and its about a gangster who has a bad tooth and he goes to get it treated and all hell breaks loose.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
His latest, NASTYbook, is also his first book for children. It is 43 very short stories that are disgusting, disturbing and very fun.
Buy NASTYbook
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hows it going so far?
Barry Yourgrau: Its been fun but it tends to become a bit of a blur after awhile.
DRE: Ive heard that from a lot of authors.
BY: Its been getting up early and whatever but its been fun because I dont usually go to kids bookstores. Theyve been taking me to schools. I did my shtick to 200 seventh graders.
DRE: Have you ever done stuff like that for such young people?
BY: No but its not that different. What was interesting was that I had some of these stories that I thought were delightful such as the one about the boy who picks his nose and it turns into this monstrous worm and stuff. I say the opening line and all the teachers kind of grin Ooh, yuck! So its been interesting.
DRE: Did you pitch this as a kids book?
BY: Absolutely! Thats what it is! Its for everyone and itll be a series. The next one comes out as a novel next spring. But it will be a short novel. It will also have some pages in it thatll turn to Manga Comics for a bit. They told me, You just keep going. You go as far as you want and well call you back.
DRE: Some of the stuff seems kind of Roald Dahlish.
BY: Exactly, its like beyond Roald Dahl. The amazing thing is that I thought that boys would get this particularly but people bring their little eight year-old daughters with them and they love it too. They like all the nasty stuff. Someone said, Whats the difference between writing for an adult and writing for a kid? An adult author also writes for kids said, The difference is this: I write the same way I write for kids as I write for adults except better.
DRE: Since it is a kids book you kind of played with the way the book actually looks as well.
BY: Indeed, the book is upside down when you open it. Its covered with fingerprints so it looks nasty and grubby. Its got the spine the wrong way around so its quite an object. I sometimes go into bookstores and say to people, Hey wait a minute! This book is upside down! We have fun in the ways as we can.
DRE: Do you ever go to bookstores and just watch people pick it up?
BY: Havent had time for that but thats something to do. I sometimes hand the book to people and say Tell me if you figure out whats wrong with this. Some people say, I cant figure out how to open this book! The problem of dyslexia never leaves us.
It was the publishers idea to do it and I thought it might have been a little gimmicky and they said, No, we want to communicate to people that the book is not a normal book. That theres something special going on here, something strange. People get it right away. Kids like authors to just be themselves. They dont like kids books where authors write down to kids. Some things are obviously inappropriate for kids but people would rather push the envelope than not push the envelope and they really respond to a sense of authenticity. Maurice Sendak said something that rang really interesting. He said, I just write what I write. They can call it kids stuff, they can call it whatever. This is just what reflects my mind. The guy who translates my books in Japanese said it was a real interesting challenge in translating one of my books, Wearing Dads Head, because the narrators in the first person but keeps switching between child and adult sort of seamlessly and in Japanese the word for I for a kid and the word for I for an adult are two different words. He had to figure out how to do it and he finally just stuck with adult.
DRE: If something like Lemony Snicket hadnt come out, do you think it would have been harder for you to get this book out?
BY: Lemony Snicket had an immense effect on all this stuff but dont forget Lemony Snicket works out of a tradition and Ive always been a part of that. People have always been bringing up Roald Dahls name for my adult work, which is great. Quite honestly, Ive never read any Roald Dahl until finally my editor said, Look, you got to read Roald Dahl.
The Twilight Zone was a big influence on this book. Its like Twilight Zone for kids and theres a writer who really influenced The Twilight Zone besides Roald Dahl called John Collier, an adult author. Its all part of the same fantastical funny thing and Lemony Snicket just really pushed that through and opened it up hugely.
DRE: What about translating this to other mediums?
BY: I would love to. One of the things I want to do is work up like a little one man show of it. Id love to see something like a kids Twilight Zone. I think the next book; The Curse of the Tweakies would make a terrific movie.
DRE: Are the stories all connected?
BY: They all come out of a similar world but theyre not. Some kid asked me yesterday, Does the book finally get to a point? Yeah the book finally gets to the point where it tells a self-referential story about an impoverished writer of exquisite literary fiction who decides What the heck, Ill start writing for kids strictly for money. It goes on from there. It comes together quite nicely in the end.
DRE: It also seems like each story doesnt exactly follow the beginning, middle, and end structure.
BY: No and whats great when you work short is that you get to really fiddle around with how a narrative works. Sometimes they do the three act thing, sometimes they end right at the beginning, sometimes they end right in the middle and whats good about that is it strikes a gong and your own mind fills in the resonances.
DRE: Have any parents or teachers said this book is just not appropriate for kids?
BY: The opening story is about a kid whose parents announce that theyre really just too cool for him and theyre not his parents because hes just a schlub so out the door he goes. When they hear my voice reading the stuff, then they understand where its coming from. When they see the wink in the eye, then they know what its about. If they just read it flat, it looks horrendous. Theres this one story I wrote about a little panda bear that is actually an axe murderer, its a trained assassin and the kids are clamming for that story. Will you read the panda story? I said, Well, why do you like that story? Its kind of nasty and violent and they said, Oh yeah its because its so strange!
DRE: Are you friends with people who gave you the quotes like Neil Gaiman and Patrick McGrath?
BY: They approached Neil and I think he knew my work so he was generous and supportive. Patrick Ive known for a long time. Patrick and I both came out of sort of the same circles in Manhattan in the mid 80s.
DRE: I read an old quote from you from 1989 where you said that the prevailing themes in your work are family and sex. Not so much sex in this book.
BY: Well thats the one thing you have to back away from. I said to my editor, I should leave sex out, right? They said, Do whatever you want and well tell you if its too much but my sense is that if the book is for 9-12 year-olds. I love writing about sex but its not appropriate for kids. I have a story about two people who are brace wearers and fall in love and their braces lock together when they kiss and they decide to stay that way until something terrible happens. So I get into smoochy smoochy stuff but nothing more substantial.
DRE: What else are you up to?
BY: I developed this one project which is strictly in Japan where there are stories I wrote that are broadcast over cell phones. When I was over there a couple of years ago I noticed that everyone was surfing the internet on their cell phones. Its a super evolved internet cell phone culture and I said to my editors over there, Why dont we serialize stories over cell phones?
DRE: You mean like radio stories?
BY: No theyre text stories. It was great. People loved it and my editor thought they were spectacular and they were really short but again allowing you to monkey with how a narrative works.
DRE: You working on any more movies?
BY: No but for a while I worked on this project with [Monsters Ball director] Mark Forster. I knew Mark just when he was making Monsters Ball and so we decided wed work on a movie together because he liked my stuff. We both realized we really love gangster films. So I wrote up this gangster film but it was my first script ever so it suffered but I thought it was terrific I think Mark looked at it and thought What the hell is this thing!? Its just too much. But whats interesting is this next NASTYbook I wrote called The Curse of the Tweedies in a certain way, is a better of version of that script. Its a more effective, better written, clearer version. Its as whacky as that script. The script is called Toothache and its about a gangster who has a bad tooth and he goes to get it treated and all hell breaks loose.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
courtneyriot:
Barry Yourgrau is the author of numerous sick and disturbing novels such as The Sadness of Sex, Haunted Traveler: An Imaginary Memoir, Wearing Dads Head and more...