Visit with Matthue Roth

www.matthue.com

Today we're visiting with Matthue Roth, author of teen titles including NEVER MIND THE GOLDBERGS, CANDY IN ACTION, and LOSERS, which was released by PUSH in October 2008.



Jupiter was born in Russia, but he's getting quite an education in America. He sees everything slightly askew - but in a way that's endearing to (most) of his fellow students. A popular girl takes him under her wing. He falls for her. A bully sets him as a target. But Jupiter disarms him in an unexpected way. His best friend ends up hanging with a posse of science geeks. Jupiter feels left out.

With dead-on deadpan humor, Matthue Roth makes everything illuminated about American teen life - like Borat as directed by John Hughes.

**I had the chance to ask Matthue a few questions about his life and writing - I hope you enjoy his answers as much as I did!

1. If you could bring any character from one of your books to life, who would it be and why?

It's a weird question, because all of my main characters are me, and all the sidekicks are the people I wish I could be. Ani Difranco and Orson Welles both have two-second appearances in NEVER MIND THE GOLDBERGS, and I'd kill to meet either of them. Is that cheating?

2. Your own six-word memoir.

He saved the world a lot.

3. Twitter your newest or upcoming release in 140 characters or less.

My book LOSERS: Losing your accent, fighting for your life. Everyone else has secrets, too. http://bit.ly/aoMm9d

4. You have the chance to spend the day with any character from one of your favorite books. Who would you choose and why?

Death, from Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN comic books. Partly for her job, which is to go around chasing the ghosts of just-dead people, hanging out with them until they fully die -- and partly just because she's so cool. She always wears black and has Siouxie Sioux punky blue hair, but she can quote old-school Disney movies without sounding lame.

5. What was your favorite book growing up as a teen?

I loved A WRINKLE IN TIME. I was weirdly jealous of Meg and Charles Wallance -- they were weird kids with even weirder parents who they were ashamed of. I was a weird kid with normal parents. Having parents who built time machines in your basement was the coolest possible alternate reality for me.

6. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A writer, but I never knew you could get paid for it. As a day job, I wanted to be an astronaut.

7. Your favorite subject in high school – and your least favorite.

I love math. It's probably the most unpopular answer ever, but I do. I was awful at it, and I still am, but I'm a major math nerd -- I love the way that everything in the universe balances out if you do the equations.

8. The one book everyone in the world should read.

My book NEVER MIND THE GOLDBERGS. Egotistical, I know, but here's the reason: Most people I know are totally clueless about Orthodox Jews -- who we are, what we do, whether we're terrorists or witches and warlocks or ZZ Top. GOLDBERGS isn't the definitive guide to Every Orthodox Secret Ever -- but it can teach you a few things. Plus, it's kind of an awesome story.

9. The book you wish you had written.

The short story "Ghost Dance" by Sherman Alexie. It's about all the Indians from the battle at Little Bighorn coming back to life as zombies. I don't actually wish I'd written it -- it's the kind of thing that only someone who's Indian and a horror-movie nut and totally crazy could write -- but I want every story I write to be like that. Something that's emotional and brilliant and funny and sad and that everyone can relate to, but that's still 100% me, and that nobody else could write.

10. Your five favorite reads from 2009 (books you read during the year; they do not have to have been published during 2009).

Dalia Sofer, THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ
Blue Balliett, THE CALDER GAME
Mark Twain, ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Fred Chao, JOHNNY HIRO: HALF-ASIAN, ALL HERO
Jeanette Winterson, LIGHTHOUSEKEEPING

11. If your mom wrote the author profile for the jacket of your next book, what would she write?

"He's my favorite writer, but he should curse less."

12. You have the chance to go back and change a scene from one of your previous releases. What book would you choose, what scene would you change, and how would you alter it?

There's one scene in LOSERS about a girl Jupiter likes, and how they both wind up in a very random and very suddenly emotional place, and he winds up discovering her eating disorder...and then something big happens. I totally understand why we took it out -- it was too much of an unexpected turn in the book, and it didn't really fit with everything else that was happening to Jupiter -- but I still think it's a great scene, and it still fits into the Jupiter chronology. It's been getting under my skin, how a 14-year-old guy deals with dating someone who has an eating disorder, and I think it might be growing into its own book.

13. You’re going off your diet for one day and only eating food from restaurants. What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? (Include the restaurant each meal comes from.)

I love breakfast. So I'd probably have breakfast for dinner, which frees me up to have real food for breakfast -- starting with deep-fried tempura from T Fusion Steakhouse, where my wife loves to eat. I'm a vegetarian who's a closet wannabe vegan, and she loves meat, and so usually I'm eating the pasta-with-broccoli at meat restaurants, but T Fusion treats their vegetarians well. The tempura is like deep-fried ecstasy.

I'm a big fan of food, but I don't eat a lot. I'm really into the idea of tasting menus, with really small portions of a lot of different dishes -- soup course served in a spoon and all that. Lunch would probably be that. Hopefully with mushroom truffles and something really wild done to an artichoke heart. If any chef is reading this, there's your challenge. Invite me to dinner. Please.

And, like I said, breakfast for dinner. We're talking full-on breakfast. I got invited to a writers' convention in Israel this summer, and I can't wait -- Israel is known for having huge breakfasts. It's a lifestyle thing. They get up at 4 a.m., work on a kibbutz until 9 or 10, and then have five kinds of eggs, spicy shakshuka, hash browns, tomato slices with nothing on them. Tomatoes are a delicacy there. They can be, because they're straight-up bursting with flavor.

14. You get the chance to star in an upcoming film release. What movie would you star in for your acting debut? (If you can’t choose an upcoming film, you can choose a past release.)

I'd so be Sherlock Holmes. I'm not nearly as smart, and I don't know the physics of punching out someone twice as tall as you are, but I can do that raised-eyebrow I-know-what-you're-thinking face. Plus, Victorian England rocks.

15. Someone tells you that you’ll never publish another book that you write. Do you still keep writing?

This is going to sound bad, but it's really not: It feels like that's happening now. LOSERS has been selling great, especially for a book that isn't about death or prep school or vampires, but nobody wants to publish the sequel. Publishing people keep saying that they can't buy books about teenage boys, because only books about girls are selling. And I have another book that nobody's touching; it's even weirder.

At the same time, my non-book writing is great. I wrote my first screenplay, and it's been sold and filmed. They're in post-production right now, and I have another movie that's being optioned. I was commissioned to write a series of 3-minute animated episodes of the Bible called G-dcast [www.g-dcast.com], and I can get away with throwing all sorts of crazy stuff in.

Not having a next book is strange, almost liberating. If I don't have to worry about impressing my editor or an agent or freaking out my base of existing readers or something, I can try anything. Thank G-d, I have a bunch of readers who track me down, whatever I'm doing, and I don't have to worry about the masses. I mean, I have a huge amount of love for J.K. Rowling, but I'd hate to be her right now. No matter what she does, somewhere, someone is going to compare it to HARRY POTTER. Whereas, if I never write another book about Jewish punk-rock kids, people will be O.K. with that.

**Thanks so much to Matthue for visiting with us today! Be sure to visit his website listed above, or you can also find him at Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.

Be sure to leave any comments or questions you have for him in the comments section!