Barry Yourgrau
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Barry Yourgrau is the author of numerous sick and disturbing novels such as The Sadness of Sex, Haunted Traveler: An Imaginary Memoir, Wearing Dad’s Head and more.

His latest, NASTYbook, is also his first book for children. It is 43 very short stories that are disgusting, disturbing and very fun.

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Daniel Robert Epstein: How’s it going so far?

Barry Yourgrau: It’s been fun but it tends to become a bit of a blur after awhile.

DRE: I’ve heard that from a lot of authors.

BY: It’s been getting up early and whatever but it’s been fun because I don’t usually go to kid’s bookstores. They’ve been taking me to schools. I did my shtick to 200 seventh graders.

DRE: Have you ever done stuff like that for such young people?

BY: No but it’s not that different. What was interesting was that I had some of these stories that I thought were delightful such as the one about the boy who picks his nose and it turns into this monstrous worm and stuff. I say the opening line and all the teachers kind of grin “Ooh, yuck!” So it’s been interesting.

DRE: Did you pitch this as a kid’s book?

BY: Absolutely! That’s what it is! It’s for everyone and it’ll be a series. The next one comes out as a novel next spring. But it will be a short novel. It will also have some pages in it that’ll turn to Manga Comics for a bit. They told me, “You just keep going. You go as far as you want and we’ll call you back.”

DRE: Some of the stuff seems kind of “Roald Dahlish.”


BY: Exactly, it’s like beyond Roald Dahl. The amazing thing is that I thought that boys would get this particularly but people bring their little eight year-old daughters with them and they love it too. They like all the nasty stuff. Someone said, “What’s the difference between writing for an adult and writing for a kid?” An adult author also writes for kids said, “The difference is this: I write the same way I write for kids as I write for adults except better.”

DRE: Since it is a kid’s book you kind of played with the way the book actually looks as well.

BY: Indeed, the book is upside down when you open it. It’s covered with fingerprints so it looks nasty and grubby. It’s got the spine the wrong way around so it’s quite an object. I sometimes go into bookstores and say to people, “Hey wait a minute! This book is upside down!” We have fun in the ways as we can.

DRE: Do you ever go to bookstores and just watch people pick it up?

BY: Haven’t had time for that but that’s something to do. I sometimes hand the book to people and say “Tell me if you figure out what’s wrong with this.” Some people say, “I can’t figure out how to open this book!” The problem of dyslexia never leaves us.

It was the publisher’s idea to do it and I thought it might have been a little gimmicky and they said, “No, we want to communicate to people that the book is not a normal book. That there’s something special going on here, something strange.” People get it right away. Kids like authors to just be themselves. They don’t like kids’ books where authors write down to kids. Some things are obviously inappropriate for kids but people would rather push the envelope than not push the envelope and they really respond to a sense of authenticity.” Maurice Sendak said something that rang really interesting. He said, “I just write what I write. They can call it kids stuff, they can call it whatever. This is just what reflects my mind.” The guy who translates my books in Japanese said it was a real interesting challenge in translating one of my books, Wearing Dad’s Head, because the narrator’s in the first person but keeps switching between child and adult sort of seamlessly and in Japanese the word for “I” for a kid and the word for “I” for an adult are two different words. He had to figure out how to do it and he fin