Interview with Sean Beaudoin

A while ago I reviewed a book called Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin. It's a pop culture-savvy novella that mixes cyberpunk with the high school blues, and Beaudoin has followed it up with a new detective fiction-influenced novel called You Killed Wesley Payne. Celebrated teen-fiction author M. T. Anderson has started using this book as educational material for some of his lectures, and it's been getting notice with some American literary organisations.

To help promote the publication of this hot property, Beaudoin has kindly donated his time for an exclusive Q&A session...

First up, tell us about your book.
It's a black comedy disguised as a neo-noir murder mystery set in the mean hallways of Salt River High. The hero (anti-hero) Dalton Rev transfers in to solve the mystery of a body found hanging from the goalpost at the end of the football field. Just so happens to be Wesley Payne. There's cliques, danger, loot, wisecracks, and femme fatales. Pretty much everything you'd expect from another debutante novel. We almost decided to call it Gossip Boy.

How is it different to your last two novels?
Say what you like about any of my books (they rule! they suck!), but I don't think you can say they're very similar. This one is totally different than the other two. I guess I get bored easily. A.D.D. can apparently stand for either Attention Deficit Disorder or Another Dumb Digression. Actually, if there's any similarities, I hope it can be said that they're uniformly sort of funny.

How did M. T. Anderson come to use You Killed Wesley Payne as an educational tool?
He told me he was at a conference where a table full of authors were passing an advance copy of Wesley Payne around and laughing about parts in the back. So, he picked one up and liked it. Mr. Anderson (what I usually call him. That, or "yes sire") has used Wesley Payne as an example of a novel that plays with language in an interesting way. I believe he ends every lecture with the phrase "And now you WILL all go out and buy three copies!"


How hard was it to first get published? How did you get into writing?
I've been writing since I was a teenager, with various results. I got into it more formally when I began getting paid. And also when I realized it was one of my few marketable skills. Getting published is never easy. It depends what your publishing goals are. Short story? Poetry? Indie press? Blockbuster novel? I will say it's much easier to get your writing around and read nwo than it was when I began. In other words, if you want to make it happen, there are fewer excuses than ever.

Other than writing, what else do you fill your days with?
I would like to be able to say "surfing, fencing, racing Ducatis, jamming through an enormous Marshall stack, and writing proprietary gaming code," but, you know, it wouldn't be true. I make sandwiches, wipe my daughter's nose, ignore emails, and read. I read a lot.


I have to admit, I didn't get the comic book sequence in Fade to Blue... what was that all about?
There's a comic book in Fade to Blue?

My copy of Fade to Blue has a comic-strip sequence called "The Adventures of Destruktor-Bot" that runs for about 6 or 8 pages or so after page 86. Are you unaware of this, or are you just being flippant?
You should head on down to Borders right now and demand you money back!

Have you ever considered writing full-length comics?
I would love to. If I found an illustrator who seemed to be on my wavelength, I would pound out a graphic novel on spec in a heartbeat.

What influences youre writing and who are your favourite authors?
I think, except for the very best writers who ever lived, we are all very obviously the summation of the personality you see in the prose. In other words, as an author you can't hide who you are in a novel. My influences are probably pretty clear from reading (or, you know, skimming in the bookstore before putting it down and picking something else) the first two books.

I have too many favourite authors to list. But the first seven to randomly come to mind are: Evelyn Waugh, Stephen Wright, Jim Thompson, Alice Munro, Don Carpenter, David Mitchell and M. T. Anderson (Mr. Anderson gives me a dollar every time I say that.)


Do you have ambitions of writing for television or film?
I am currently working on a screenplay with my buddy Pie Truck. We are about halfway through it. It's tough, because he lives in a different state, so we do it all via email, but it's coming along. A totally rocking monster/social satire sort of thing with no robots who turn into rocket-bots, but maybe some explosions.

How did he come by the name 'Pie Truck'?
That's what I call him. Because he is simultaneously shaped both like a pie with one piece cut out of it, and an enormous delivery truck. If you saw him, you'd instantly know what I was talking about. And like a nice, warm piece of pie, he doesn't mind the name at all.

What's your next project?
My next book, Wise Young Truck, is in the hands of my editor as I type this. Hopefully, it will come out exactly a year after You Killed Wesley Payne and be at least 26% better.

What kind of novel will Wise Young Truck be?
It's sort of a fictional memoir about being in a band in high school, and wanting to do nothing except rock harder than everybody else. And, you know, meet girls.

Thanks!
Thanks for having me! It was fun.

Trailer for You Killed Wesley Payne...