The current issue of Bomb magazine features a fascinating conversation between Max Benavidez and Salvador Plascencia, author of "The People of Paper." The novel is a delicious read: a magical saga where "cowardly saints avoid their duties by moonlighting as masked Mexican wrestlers" and "a decaying Rita Hayworth is harrassed constantly by agitated lettuce pickers," as I noted in my L.A. Times review. One thing I didn't note then, though, was the nature of the book itself, which Plascencia discusses in this interview:
As far as the physical appearance of the book goes: "design" is often taken to mean something that happens after the writing. And, without a doubt, the people at McSweeney's are great designers in that sense, but the graphic and layout elements within the narrative are not just decorative. The columns, the blackouts, serve an integral narrative function. [...] What I find extremely interesting is the apprehension toward typography and design by many critics. You hear people say, sarcastically, Call me old-fashioned but I like my novels with words. The irony is, if you're familiar with print culture and history, a book consisting of pure prose on a single column is a fairly recent development that has more to do with the standardization of printing presses and lazy publishers than literary tradition. There are limits to what prose can do, and sometimes it's not a metaphor and lyricism that you need. Sometimes what the page needs is a darkened square.
And on sadness, which in Plascencia's novel is represented as the base of a food pyramid, below breads:
No one really wants to live in Eden; we would die from the absurdity and boredom of a life suspended in exposition where there is no potential for injury.
At Tingle Alley, there are intriguing posts quoting Plascencia and his editor on the process on publishing "The People of Paper." Also in the current Bomb, Marisela Norte in conversation with Gronk, Josh Kun on Los Tigres del Norte, and Adelina Anthony on Cherrie Moraga.