Saturday, March 9, 2013

David Abrams

David Abrams served in the U.S. Army for twenty years, and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as part of a public affairs team. His stories have appeared in Esquire, Narrative, and other literary magazines.

His debut novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2012 and a Best Book of 2012 by Paste Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Barnes and Noble. It was also featured as part of B&N's Discover Great New Writers program.

Recently I asked Abrams about what he was reading.  His reply:
I’ve just started reading Benjamin Percy’s new novel Red Moon, which will be out in May. I’m reading an advance copy on my Kindle and I feel like someone who has just boarded a time machine, flown to the near future where he learns there will be a bunch of very cool and delightful things happening (like: a permanent end to all wars, and the sudden popularity of bacon-flavored ice cream), and then comes back to his humdrum present-day where he must walk around with all this excitement about the future boiling in his chest and even though he tries to tell everyone how wonderful life is about to get, no one really believes him. Yeah, that’s how I feel reading my copy of Red Moon before everyone else in the world. Get ready, folks—this is the bacon-flavored ice cream of literature and you’re going to fucking love it when it arrives in May.

What’s it about? Oh, I don’t want to spoil it for you.

—Okay, okay, twist my arm. I’m only a short way into the novel, but this is what it seems to be about: It’s set in the near future (where they may or may not eat bacon ice cream) when werewolves, called “lycans,” are a recognized class of society. But there’s all sorts of prejudice and hatred and fear against them (which is understandable since lycans are going around ripping out the throats of everyone they meet). Percy draws a lot of parallels to our current class warfare. Lycans are a lot like Muslims living in America in 2001. Except they sprout hair and claws and probably hate bacon-flavored ice cream.
Learn more about the book and author at David Abrams' website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Fobbit.

--Marshal Zeringue