NIcholas Mancusi will be reading at Difficult to Name on Saturday, September 9
You have one of the best moustachesI've seen. Do you remember specifically how that aesthetic evolved or did it kind of sneak up on you?
The moustache runs in the family (my grandfather's is better) and I feel like if you can grow a moustache, what are you gonna do, *not* grow one? I don't even necessarily like it but my hands are tied.
You recently published a tremendous short story in Joyland. Is that an excerpt from your novel?
Thank you! That story is 100% separate from my novel, although it probably deals with similar themes that preoccupy me. I wrote most of that story during the summer after I graduated college, and let it languish on my hard drive for years before dusting it off recently. It was fun to revisit those misbehaving young people. The misbehaving people in my novel are slightly older.
What are you working on this fall?
This fall, in addition to finishing my novel, I'm working on a new short story, and on walking through piles of leaves with a thermos of hot cider while a crisp autumn breeze nips at my ears.
What can people expect from your reading?
I think I'll probably read straight from the first line of the novel, so I don't have to explain anything.