JUSTIFY YOURSELF: In Which We Hold Robert Wexler's Feet to the Fire

Mr. Wexler, author of the recently released novel The Circus of the Grand Design, consented to the first Justify Yourself VanderWorld blog interview. Coming soon: K.J. Bishop and Minsoo Kang find themselves interrogated, with two-way glass, bright lights in the face, etc.

JeffV

JUSTIFY YOURSELF, ROBERT FREEMAN WEXLER...

Why should anyone bother to pick up your book as opposed to, say, just about anybody else's book?
The cover art is better. But more important, taking into consideration page count, trim size, weight of the paper, cover stock, etc., the book has been constructed to achieve a physical balance that hasn't been duplicated since the 1875 publication of
Henry James' Roderick Hudson, which has been universally recognized as the most perfectly-produced book of the modern era. (There's actually a long and fascinating story about the printer of that work, who died soon after publication, due to complications resulting from a laundry accident.) My expectation is that millions of people will pick up the book and be so charmed that they will be unable to put it
down.

Does your book have any socially redeeming qualities?
You can't shoot a gun while you're reading a book, can you? That's why the NRA is against books. But if reading cuts the murder rate, I'll keep writing.

Does your book have any medicinal or mental health value to readers?
If held long enough, its physical perfection causes a trance-like effect similar to that following orgasm.

Assume your book has been filed under "Ages 8 to 12" in the children's section, perhaps by mistake, perhaps not. How horrified do you imagine a child would be after reading your book, and why? How many years of therapy would the child take to recover from the experience?
The book has sex and violence so there shouldn't be any problems.

If no one buys your book and you are unable to continue publishing your fiction due to the intense vilification that occurs in the media, what line of work will you go into?
Cooking school, then a job in a restaurant. That way, I'm assured of at least one meal a day. Restaurant cooking jobs are supposed to be hell, but what could be worse than intense vilification? And someday I could have my own show on the Food Network.

(Evil Monkey says, "I used to work in the Circus of the Grand Design. That's how I lost all of my limbs...also, not to get off on a tangent, but...W already scares me big time. Does AM have to scare me now, too? Surely CB could have found a better photo?")