I've been working on a novel about Porn Valley for about a million years. The name of the book is Porn Happy. The original story idea came to me, I think, around seven years ago now, and the most recent version of this vision came to me during the summer of 2005, when I had a nervous breakdown and re-read The Divine Comedy at the same time. For quite some time, there have been five main characters. My firstborn was John Chance. He is the man with no name who is the central character in the title story of You're a Bad Man, Aren't You? He's a pornographer, a very bad pornographer--(isn't he?). Happy Darling is the name of his girl. She is the most famous porn star in the world. When I am bored, I like to imagine Angelina Jolie playing her in the movie version of my novel-in-utero. The story also includes Buck Banks, a male porn star with a secret inside of him. Another character is Lucy Love, a girl journalist who I described here. The last member of this motley crew is Xerxes Xavier. In a previous incarnation of this novel, a 150-page incarnation that I abandoned after I realized having a super-unhappy writer as a main character was perhaps not such a good idea, Xerxes was a mopey writer. This time around, at least for now, he is a G-man. Lo these many years, I have hemmed and hawed over who my main character is. Xerxes? Lucy? Happy? I've tried them all, except for Buck, who is, shall we say, not the brightest bulb in the bunch. The other day, I re-read "You're a Bad Man, Aren't You?" and I wondered if John Chance, the original bad man, is my main character after all. He is my suit of armor, my pathologies empowered, the dog of my id unleashed and unchecked. Mostly, I avoid writing about these kinds of things, chronicling my failures. Reading this made me write this. The insistence of experimentation never ends. So it begins again.
