Jay Wexler

Jay Wexler is a professor of law at Boston University, a former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the author of three books, Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battleground of the Church/State Wars, The Odd Clauses: Understanding the Constitution Through Ten of its Most Curious Provisions, and the recently released book of fiction, The Adventures of Ed Tuttle, Associate Justice, and Other Stories.

From his Q & A with Julianna Baggott:

What kind of child were you, inside of what kind of childhood, and how did it shape you as a writer?

I’m an only child, so I grew up muttering to myself and talking to my extensive collection of puppets. I would write puppet shows and put them on for friends. Many of the puppet shows were spoofs on movies, like “Zero,” which was a spoof on Bo Derek’s “10” and starred Discombobulated Duck (a duck puppet that got permanently squished in the suitcase my father brought it home from vacation in) as a particularly ugly woman. My parents got divorced when I was twelve, and I think they felt pretty guilty about it, so they let me do pretty much whatever I wanted, which explains why my mother let me put on a show called “Friday the 13th,” which involved lots of squirting ketchup on the walls and blowing up fireworks inside the house. I think I was a character myself in one of the shows and I think I may have pretended to have sex with one of the puppets on the stage. It might have been Munchie the mouse. I’m not proud of this.

What’s your reading life like? Do you have any current favorites or sleepers that may have flown under our radar?

I read primarily fiction. This past summer I took Moby Dick with me on a three week vacation. It took me six weeks to finish it. I’m not sure...[read on]

The Page 99 Test: Holy Hullabaloos.

--Marshal Zeringue