Famous Authors’ Thoughts While Being Photographed

Haruki Murakami

I knew I should have shaved. I fucking knew it. This motherfucker best stop staring at my chin. Fast, if he knows what’s good for him. I feel a rage inside me to the power of 100,000 cats. I am Cat God, motherfucker. Hehe. At least my arms look nice. My beautiful typing arms. I want to touch me. BOOM! I sizzle. This is so good. I wonder if they’d let me do the cover with my shirt off. I can’t think of anybody with a shirtless author photo offhand. Seems different, but not too different. Just different enough.

Jeffrey Eugenides

I can’t believe I’ve never seen David Copperfield live in performance. Seems like it would really blow your mind to see that stuff live. I mean, on TV is one thing, but up there on stage with just him and the audience, no strings attached… I don’t know. It’s just something I really regret right now, kind of like this “sexy pose” option. If this ends up being the one they go with… Damn. I wonder what Paul Reiser is doing right now? He seems like he’d be really cool to go to coffee with. I’m going to ask Alison and see if she can’t get a hold of his number for me.

Miranda July

Pudgy kittens, kidgy puttens. Fuzzy goggles, mmm. Ahem. Norm-morphative! Bean tree city washing machine dad lariat tu-tu, yeah? Ice cream it after? Wonder if the deli is open, and I wonder if the deli stocks socks along with dishes for my dairy? Oh, woof-ever, dog-thought. Snarp off oph it an’ smile. Aloft baby boy bean eat head hair face master moshing. Sweepy scwibbles! O when o when o when o when…

T.C. Boyle

First my imagination murdered Jesus, then it murdered God. I am God here, foolhardy slut. Your flashbulbs and your firm cannot contain my girth now. You seen The Lawnmower Man? I’m like that guy times ten. I mean like times a billion. Hey, picture this: how about you quit this donkey show and come back to my place and I’ll show you what being God is all about. My dick, get it? It’s bright red and covered in Brillo and it’s all yours. I got a doink the size of America, I’m just saying. And I choose you, Pikachu. I am a very special boy. You’re only alive, you and all the other humans, because I say so, in my novels, gorgeously, again and again.

Tony Hoagland

Gee, I love salad. I mean I really do. I can’t think of anything better than salad. I mean anytime, really: dinner, breakfast. Lunch! I wonder if God likes salad. No really, does God like salad? Think about it. Even assuming he doesn’t have to eat to survive, he could if he wanted to, right? If God wanted to he could sit down at a table and eat a salad with toasted almonds and walnuts and pepper nuts and heck nuts with bolts on them and all the sugar in the world. God could do that if he wanted. Maybe I’m God. Naw, I’m not God, that’s silly. I mean I’m pretty dang good, but God is pushing it. I mean not pushing it, but it’s a little much. OK, a lot much. But if I was, I would eat a salad. I would eat the heck out of a salad in front of everyone and it would just blow their freaking minds.

Alice Munro

I be on that kryptonite… Straight up on that kryptonite… I be on that, straight up on that… I be on that kryptonite… I be on that kryptonite…

Michel Houellebecq

I would fuck a horse. I would fuck a Land Rover. I would fuck a cherry tree. I would fuck rocks. I would gobble the shit off of a shitty fuck another fucker finished fucking. I would fuck parsley. I would fuck a pair of scissors. I would fuck fried rice. I would fuck cotton fields. I would fuck orange fields. I would fuck Walmart and K-Mart both at once. I would fuck Sally Jesse Raphael. I would fuck soundwaves. I would fuck the water off your earth. We done?

Chuck Palahniuk

::sound of sink’s garbage disposal cutting something chunky up:: ::sound of something squirting through a hole too small for it to fit:: ::sound of thick dudes with their shirts off punching each other in the chest on a long grassy field outside a college dormitory:: ::sound of an ambulance exploding on a cartoon over and over:: ::sound of Trent Reznor chopping carrots with his mind:: ::sound of hot tubs overflowing onto more water::

John Irving

John stood patiently before his appointed handler. The brazen knowingness of John’s eyes wore at the air before him as she framed him in her scene. Her fingers expertly manipulated the mechanism’s components to capture him in just the right way. He was, of course, a noble subject, though she sensed something sprawling just underneath the contours of his face. Something he could hardly seem to contain as she went on before him with her work, neither of them quite able to speak into the wavering silence that held the air between them quivering with expectation, each instant ending in light of its own impending expectation of being shattered by a will. Whose will, though? Which of these humans had the right? John’s hands shook in his pockets, awaiting.

Alain de Botton

Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me.

@blakebutler