Owen Egerton’s novel Everyone Says That at the End of the World is due out this April from Soft Skull Press. He’s also the author of The Book of Harold, the Illegitimate Son of God, which is currently in development as a television series with Warner Bros. Television. As a screenwriter, Egerton has written for Fox, Warner Brothers, and Disney studios. Egerton is also a regular performer with the Alamo Drafthouse’s Master Pancake Theater.
An excerpt from his novel Everyone Says That at the End of the World appears in Issue Forty-Four of The Collagist.
Here, Owen Egerton answers questions "in the form of excerpts" -- with further excerpts from Everyone Says That at the End of the World. Enjoy!
1. What is writing like?
She turned up the volume till her ears hurt. That’s how she liked her music, just a little painful. She knew Mingus would approve. Hell, he put the pain in himself. He slammed two notes together that harmonized, but just barely, two notes that had to work at it. They weren’t a C and a G, more a C and an A-sharp. That’s how she saw her and Milton. No one would choose to put these notes together, no one but a mind like Mingus. And when Mingus did it . . . when he played or wrote or yelled, he said, “Yes, this is how it is supposed to be. These notes belong together.” He told the notes, “You can fight, you can twist, but know that you are home. This is where you are supposed to be.” And the notes listened. And the notes sang.
2. What isn’t writing like?
Deepak Chopra wearing nothing but an impressive erection.
3. When you do it, why?
He didn’t mind confusion. He was used to it. As a child the confusion would come in waves. Confusion and sadness. A home-desire sadness. Jesus-18 believed this home-desire was the primary emotion of all people. Home, he also felt, had very little to do with where one was born or raised. Home was the urge of what might be. What could and should be. Home was the kingdom rising up within the empire, the flower growing in the rock wall, the kind want emerging in the cool heart. He saw homesick souls in all he passed, no matter how foreign, how crippled, how cruel. He saw this home-desire even in the dead.
4. When you don’t, why?
So the Floaters built a hell in North Dakota. It was a nasty place.
Hell had no light. No sound. Hell was an itchy soul feeling. A restlessness coupled with a certainty that no rest exists. An aimless anger. A soul-deep ennui.
But (and this floored the Floaters) the occupants of hell all seemed incredibly content. A little research revealed that these people had experienced the itchy soul syndrome their entire lives. But now, in hell, the feeling was understood as punishment. Finally their misery had meaning. There was a point to an existence they, in their heart of hearts, felt to be pointless. The Floaters took note.