Title: The Loss of Leon Meed
Author: Josh Emmons
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-0743267199
1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?
It’s about what happens when a man inexplicably starts disappearing and appearing all over the small town in northern California where he lives, Eureka. Ten unrelated people see him do it and have to make sense of what seems to be a miracle. Some think it’s a sign from God, others that they’re hallucinating, others that they’re dreaming, others that it’s the result of environmental catastrophe…
2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.
I wrote a few books in my twenties and went through the motions of trying to get them published-querying agents, rubbing talismans-without any luck, so I went to grad school and figured out that I wasn’t spending enough time revising my work, that I’d gotten into the habit of submitting it before it was ready for the world. So I spent two years writing The Loss of Leon Meed and got a smart, demanding agent who made me spend even more time revising-another year-and then finally sold it on an overcast day in New Orleans as I sat in a beautiful old coffee shop on Carrollton Avenue, watching street cars roll along under the oaks.
3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?
My second book, Prescription for a Superior Existence, comes out on June 10. It’s a half-satirical, half-serious novel about a pleasure-addicted guy who gets caught up in an anti-desire religion; basically it’s a look at the war that goes on inside of people between instant gratification and eternal salvation. Right now I’m in the middle of writing a new book called The Romantics, about a marriage on the fritz.
4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?
I write best in the morning when I’ve had massive doses of caffeine and sugar. Since by nature I’m pretty sleepy-calm is the nice way to put it-I need stimulants to get me going, after which I have about three hours of good productivity in me before I falter and fall off. Then I spend as much time as possible reading, for inspiration and information’s sake.
5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.
At present I don’t own a cat, though my family had several when I was growing up: Chablis, Sander, Petey, Gus, etc. My roommate in grad school had two, Fern and Maisie, whom I’ll always love more than I love most people. I have a dachshund now, Bill, who is catlike in that he loves the sun and unconsciousness.
[...] over to The First Book blog. Josh Emmons and his book, The Loss of Leon Meed, is profiled over there. It’s our 20th installment in the series. A snippet: “I [...]
Henri is a people-loving female (yes, female, and no, it’s not short for Henrietta) who has gone through roughly six of her allotted nine lives. During her infancy, I closed her in the refrigerator, lost her under the neighbor’s house, dried her in the drier, and rescued her from my roof too many times to count. She has an adorable notch in one ear from a meeting with a stray, and a not-so-adorable fondness for stretching out on my keyboard and writing multiples of the same series of letters in the middle of my page. So far, she hasn’t learned to spell. But she reminds me, at appropriate intervals, that I write better if I stop now and again to refresh the coffee, step outside and take a deep breath, eat some strawberries. Yes, there’s a correlation between owning a cat and doing my best work. I return to work refreshed and reminded that there’s at least one soul in the world who loves my attention, and perhaps even me. Leon Meed’s book sounds intriguing and original.