Saturday, August 16, 2008

Ben Tanzer

From a Q & A at Orange Alert Press with Ben Tanzer, author of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine:

OAP: The title is taken for a Bob Dylan song. What was it about that song that seemed to fit with what you wanted to accomplish with this story?

BT: I probably need to start by saying that I listen to music all the time and almost always listen to music when I write. I was listening to “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” on some random afternoon while working on the book and in a mood for some Dylan and it just struck me as the right vibe for this work, the right title certainly, but even the tone, and what it invoked in me. I don’t necessarily listen to lyrics, but while the song isn’t exactly happy thematically, it is sung with a certain kind of lightness and humor, and I like to strive for that when I write, dark but laced with humor, streamlined, but with dialogue that resonates. What’s tricky is that Dylan is so loaded, he’s a genius, a poet, a god and so on, and I didn’t want that association per se, but this song on that day, was perfect. On another day it could have been something by Avail or Bruce Springsteen or Other World, and some day it probably will be.
Read the complete Q & A.

Learn more about the author and his work at Ben Tanzer's MySpace page and This Blog Will Change Your Life.

The Page 69 Test: Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine.

--Marshal Zeringue