Wednesday, July 22, 2015

An Interview With Deranged Author Brian Whitney


Take Hunter Thompson.  Add crazy.  Has this man written the funniest novel ever?


Do you like your comedy black?  Bleak?  Offbeat to the point of insanity?

Do you like surprises?  Ones so funny that the pretzel nugget you were just trying to eat becomes lodged in your throat?  And then you die laughing?

Maybe you like books that remind you of those times when you swallowed pills your mom wouldn't recommend, and began to experience things most people would agree weren't happening.

This is one of those books.  You can buy it on Amazon:



http://www.amazon.com/Raping-Gods-Tale-Sex-Madness-ebook/dp/B00T5D7NVW/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8


In short, Raping the Gods concerns a drunken ghostwriter who writes memoirs of porn stars.  He travels to Samoa to help a rich sex addict write his autobiography.  The sex addict keeps female slaves.  

Yes.  

Not politically correct.  If you need things to be politically correct, don't read the book.  You will only irritate yourself.  You will feel that bad people shouldn't write bad things.  And you will feel that Brian Whitney is very bad.


When the Going Gets Weird...

The book starts out weird, and only becomes weirder.  So weird at times that you would call it surreal.  Surreal like William S. Burroughs.

And funny?  Very, very funny.  Funny like "Bonfire of the Vanities" or "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas."

We happen to have its author Brian Whitney here today to talk to Thee Optimist.  We're not sure if that means we're lucky or unlucky.  You can decide for yourself.



Thee Optimist: What made you think of becoming a writer? 

I have always loved books and loved to read, but I never thought of being a writer until I started impersonating people on the internet.  I had a couple friends and for a hobby we would start blogs and pretend to be other people.  Vietnam Vets, kids in a group home, and so on.  We did it to mess with people mostly. 

Then I started doing some on my own.  I pretended to be a 16 year girl with an abusive boyfriend, a wealthy French playboy, some of these blogs became quite successful.  It gave me confidence that I could make a little money at it, if I had the guts to live the sort of life that one has to live to be a writer. 


What did you read when you were a kid? 

I read a ton as a kid.  I read all the time.  I would way rather be in my room with a book than dealing with the outside world.  My favorite authors when young were Roald Dahl, and Ray Bradbury, as a teen I really got into Jim Carroll and Richard Hell. 


Who are some of your favorite authors? 

The guys that get me going the most are dark as well as funny as Hell.  I really like Denis Johnson, George Saunders, Michael Kuhn, and Sam Lipsyte.  I still read constantly.  Lately I have been burning through a ton of Joyce Carol Oates. 


Who are your biggest influences in life?  Heroes, if you will. 

I have been asked this before and I don't think I have any heroes.  I have always been the iconoclastic, individualist type to a fault.  This is probably the reason I am basically unemployable.  

I do have influences, and those are people who move through life and follow their own rules without causing harm to others.  Anyone that wakes up in the morning and does what makes them happy is an influence to me.

  




Raping the Gods is one of the funniest books ever written.  Where did you get the idea for it? 

One of my best friends is a brilliant guy, and rather hilarious. He came up with the name of the book, which I thought was amazing, and the basic plot during a drunken conversation of some sort.  I, of course, then filled in the blanks with funny stories, and a lot of sexual deviance, because that is how I roll apparently. 


The scene where the 15-year-old kid spanks Mrs. Johnson’s husband… laugh out loud funny.  From experience? 

That whole sequence with the 15 year old kid was written years before, except it wasn't written as a 15 year old kid, it was written as a dragon who was in the witness protection program and hiding out in a rich town on the coast of Maine. Apparently I was doing some good drugs back then.


What are you writing now? 

I am working on a lot of other people's projects, I ghostwrite a lot, but I am not working on anything myself.  Although just the other day I started thinking of how I needed to start writing something new.  

I tend to not write my own stuff at all for months at a time, then do nothing but write for a period.  I work fast.  I am not one of those guys who slave away on a book for years, when I do something I bang it out.  So I think soon the mood will strike me. 


How did the porn star thing come about?  Are you a fan of pornography or is it just a work thing? 

I don't watch porn at all.  I do write about sex, and I wanted to get into ghostwriting, so after my first book came out I wrote a ton of porn stars asking them if they wanted to do a book with me, just because I thought they would like my fiction, and give me a shot.

I did a book with Porsche Lynn that is out now, and I just finished one with Rebecca Lord, who is an absolute doll, that will be out soon.  I am talking to a few well known porn stars currently, and hopefully will have another deal signed soon. 


When you’re in jail (or other institutional settings), what kinds of things do you like to think about? 

I have been arrested, and I am crazy, but I have never been in either jail or a mental institution, although I did spend a month in rehab once.

I can daydream like nobody's business.  I never get bored.  I think about past loves, sex, both real and imagined, and fun times.  Basically I just tell myself good stories.  I have lots of those.


You can check out Raping the Gods for yourself.  Click to buy it on Amazon:



http://www.amazon.com/Raping-Gods-Tale-Sex-Madness-ebook/dp/B00T5D7NVW/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

http://www.amazon.com/Car-Trips-Kitty-comfortable-worry-free-ebook/dp/B00VICN72C/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

1 comment:

  1. I read it. You were right, It felt so, so wrong.

    ReplyDelete