How about answering the one question you don’t want to answer?  Going on the assumption, that is, that there’s one part of you that doesn’t know what the other part is up to, like the gestalt exercise where you jump from one chair to another, having a conversation with yourself, as if the person who you are in the first chair is completely separate from the person you are in the second.  Or like when you’re talking to yourself and you hear yourself say “If I were you…”

Is your writing more important to you than anything else in your life?

Of course it’s supposed to be—isn’t that one of the ways you can separate the real artists from the phonies?  The truth is, ever since I was a little girl I knew that what I wanted to be was an artist.  It was how I understood who I was; it was how I justified disappointments like not being as pretty as Lynn Cherieci, even though nowadays the young writers are all exceptionally good looking, at least in their photos…

Body-without-Soul

It was a suburban street, one block long, the houses made of brick and built to last like the third little pig’s. Sycamore trees had been planted at regular intervals along the curb and the curbs themselves sparkled; I think the concrete was mixed with mica in it. I think when it was new the street couldn’t help but draw attention to itself, inviting envy.

The hilarious, award-winning comedy writer Larry Doyle has a new book out this month. Deliriously Happy is a compilation of short, funny pieces Larry wrote for The New Yorker, Esquire and other magazines. You might know Larry from when he wrote and produced The Simpsons. Or maybe you know him from his first novel, I Love You Beth Cooper. If you’re a true Larry Doyle fan then you know that he also wrote the wildly fun and inventive novel Go, Mutants! and was a writer on Beavis and Butthead. And then there are the Hollywood films he’s written! Because there’s so much to talk about with Larry, I thought I’d narrow it down by subject matter and number. Hence, here is the Larry Doyle Six Question Sex Interview:

There is sex in all your books but it’s never straight-forward sexy. It’s always, well, embarrassingly funny. Can you explain this?

I was unaware that sex was not embarrassing. Clearly I should have read up more on the subject before attempting it.

Most sex writing is embarrassing and funny, though not intentionally. My goal is to one day write an amazing sex scene, Olympic and profound, that is also funny on purpose. That will be my life’s work.