David Oppegaard

From The Soulless Machine Review interview with David Oppegaard, author of The Suicide Collectors:

SMR: So, The Suicide Collectors will be your first published novel. If you had to sell it to me in 30 seconds, what would you tell me about it?

DO: The Suicide Collectors is a combination of horror, literary, and speculative fiction. Five years after suicide plague has culled 90% of the earth’s population, a man named Norman travels across a wild and dangerous America to find a cure.

* * *

SMR: Why suicide? What are your thoughts about David Foster Wallace (and Kurt Cobain)?

DO: I set out to write an apocalyptic novel with a new twist, and I’d never heard of any book with a suicide plague before. DFW was a troubled and complex mind and he obviously got tired of dealing with the pain. I think Kurt Cobain might have been better off never becoming famous at all, which is the sort of paradox that boggles the fame-obsessed American mind. I was always more of a Soundgarden and Pearl Jam guy myself.

Read the complete interview.

The Page 69 Test: The Suicide Collectors.

--Marshal Zeringue