M. Dylan Raskin Interviewed

New York Author Ready To Reclaim Spotlight

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This is why you should be reading Raskin. It’s right there in the lead sentence:

M. Dylan Raskin feels there’s a major difference between authors who want to write and those who need to write.

Any writer who knows that difference — and is in the latter category (as Raskin is) — is a writer worth reading.

For someone who hasn’t been writing books his whole life, the media frenzy picked up quickly. There was a time two summers ago, where Little New York Bastard could be seen in the front window of every bookstore in the city.

Some critics even compared him to Catcher In The Rye author J.D. Salinger – including author Neal Pollack on the back cover of Raskin’s book.

See, here’s the thing about hype like that: it can repulse certain people. Like me. I probably saw the covers all over town and avoided the book. Just as I avoid anything that hits the New York Times Best Seller list. I’ve seen the tastes that seem to govern best-seller lists. The least I can say about that taste is, Ew. The worst I can say would have me back using the kind of language I used in my first blog (something I am avoiding here).

I also think it’s a disgusting ploy to label a writer as being like another writer. No writer (at least no real writer) sets out to stand in the shadow — or to grab onto the coattails — of another writer. Reviewers — and marketers — who do that are straitjacketing a writer, setting up expectations in readers’ minds that the writer never set out to create.
Such comparisons actually damage a writer. It’s murder by praise. (Oh this guy thinks he’s he so good, huh? If I say he’s like Writer X, he’ll have to mimic Writer X forever! Ah, another career destroyed. Time for my afternoon martini and dose of Viagra!)

I’ve mentioned Bukowski in relation to Raskin, but that’s because I can. I know what I’m doing. Raskin is as genuine as Bukowski was. Raskin is a real writer, just as Bukowski was. Beyond those two points, all similarities end. Anyone who has read The Outsider by Colin Wilson and has read Raskin’s and Bukowski’s work can see they are members of the brotherhood of true writers.

Raskin has two books:

Little New York Bastard, which I wrote about in the old blog.

Bandanas and October Supplies, which I also wrote about in the old blog.

I recommend both of them again. The second one should be bought as two copies — one to give to your mother!

I’m not the only admirer of Raskin’s work. Someone thinks so much of him that they recorded a interview with him off a TV screen!

This is a **very** rare interview with author M. Dylan Raskin before he stopped giving interviews. Was recorded on Fox News San Diego shortly after the publication of “Little New York Bastard”

See my previous posts here: It’s Not For You To Know, So Don’t Ask and Never Ask to put that interview in perspective.

I look forward to Dylan’s next book. And after you’ve read the pair already out, you will too.

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