A Postmodern Belch Released

My first fully furbished novel, A Postmodern Belch, was slated for publication in 2010 at Goldfish Press. Due to an overwhelming outcry of despair from interns and meddling writers wanting their own books published, unforeseen car accidents and traitorous editors, the book never got printed by this small Californian boutique press. Years later, my enthusiasm for this super-silly, overindulgent work of youthful exuberance has not diminished, so I have decided to self-publish the novel via Lulu. It’s available via that fine crankshaft for the pocket-scorching fee of £7.06 + P&P. Here is an interview with myself, pertaining to:

Interview with The Author

MJ: You are The Author of this undergraduate folly, correct?
MJ: I am.
MJ: What did you hope to gain by self-publishing a no-holds-barred tricksy embarrassment like this?
MJ: Love and acclaim.
MJ: Ha!
MJ: Just kidding. I hoped to free myself from the self-conscious novel. From the tiresome limitations of self-reference.
MJ: Did you succeed?
MJ: Once you let doubt and awareness creep in you’re never free.
MJ: Tell us about the novel.
MJ: Three characters, Harold (based on me), Lydia (based on the woman I would like to be), and Greg (based on boring normals) wrestle for control of the novel, A Postmodern Belch.
MJ: Is that it? For 367pp?
MJ: Yep.
MJ: Uh . . . .
MJ: There are different fonts! Larger fonts! Footnotes! Sometimes fonts fluctuate in size mid-sentence.
MJ: God, you are so crazy. Such a fucking innovator.
MJ: This is turning into self-abuse now.
MJ: So?
MJ: A Postmodern Belch is all about self-abuse. It’s about being locked in a mind so paralysed by the reality of the self (don’t snigger) that it cannot tame its characters, cannot escape the solipsistic hells of the hyper self-aware long enough to create a decent story.
MJ: Who needs a decent story?
MJ: Exactly.
MJ: Who needs characters, plots, emotional sustenance, depth and intelligent discourse?
MJ: Exactly.
MJ: When you can have three unpleasant bastards shouting at each other for 367pp about how much they hate being products of the M.J. Nicholls imagination and fonts that expand mid-clause and crazy kerning and childish swear words every four lines in place of actual substance, thought, creativity, excitement, humour, energy or meaning?
MJ: Exactly.
MJ: You have written the least readable book in the galaxy.
MJ: I hope so.
MJ: Who will read it?
MJ: The self-loathing. People who hate me.
MJ: That’s your audience?
MJ: Works for Martin Amis.
MJ: Thank me for my time.
MJ: Thank you. Me.

One can acquire A Postmodern Belch here.