2 of 3

One should be careful about attributing the thoughts of fictional characters to their creators, but I get the feeling that the narrators or main characters of your novels are stand-ins for yourself.

All characters are the author, it goes without saying. I try to make my main characters or narrators as nondescript and everyman-ish as possible so that the reader has someone they can comfortably inhabit, while the extreme minor characters come on- and offstage and try to convince the protagonist (and the reader) to accept their extreme ideologies.

Of the characters you've breathed life into, which one is your favorite?

That's tough. Probably Randall Killigan (White Man's Grave) or Judge Stang (Brain Storm).

On politics, you regularly describe the increasingly suffocating role that the law is playing in society. You have also staked out some fairly hard- line stands against affirmative action and hate-crime laws. I've heard you described as a libertarian.

I'm a libertarian. The only thing more offensive than a Trent Lott Republican is a Bill Clinton Democrat.

Where did your obsession with swearing come from?

It's an obsession with words, not swearing. Swearing is just an especially bracing and dangerous vocabulary varietal. Let me recommend a site to you and your readers: Paul McFedries' Logophilia.com. It's the best thing going on the Internet for new and interesting words and expressions.

How did Stephen King learn of your work?

Stephen King quoted two passages from Brain Storm in his book On Writing, which is really the writing autobiography of the world's best-selling writer (with just the right amount of how-to thrown in). But I think before that he had also read Critical Care and White Man's Grave. I don't know how he found the first one. Except he reads more than anyone else I know, sees more movies, and listens to more music. I don't think he sleeps. Not to my knowledge.

Tell me a little bit about the forthcoming Dooling/King collaboration.

I would call it a King/Dooling/King collaboration (I just write the middle episodes). Kingdom Hospital is a series tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2003 on ABC. It is an adaptation of the Lars van Trier Danish TV series of the same name. One critic has described it as Twin Peaks meets ER, which is fair. It's funny and scary. Who could ask for more?

Jeremy Lott is the production director for The Report, a Canadian Magazine of news and opinion.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Visit Books & Culture online at BooksandCulture.com or subscribe here.

Books & Culture Corner appears Mondays at ChristianityToday.com. Earlier Books & Culture Corners include:

Books of the Year | The top ten. (OK—make that twelve.) (Dec. 30, 2002)

Entertain Us | Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the rapture of distress. (Dec. 16, 2002)

Boys Will Be Boys | A new book by a leading Christian feminist scholar inadvertently reveals the flawed assumptions underlying much talk about "flexibility" in gender roles. (Dec. 9, 2002)

Street Cred | Dave Eggers: The portrait of an artist as a … what? (Dec.2, 2002)

Epicurus'—and Darwin's—Dangerous Idea | How we became hedonists. (Nov. 18, 2002)

Weird Science? | A Darwinian debate continues. (Nov. 11, 2002)

Of Moths and Men Revisited | A Darwinian debate. (Nov. 4, 2002)

Angels in Heaven | A game that's more than a game. (Oct. 28, 2002)

Number One with a Bullet | America's foist family as a tool for evangelism. (Oct. 21, 2002)

next page... |  2 of 3

share this page

January (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47