Since people aren’t exactly lining up to interview me about
my new book, Someday We'll Figure It All Out, I decided to do the next-most logical thing…and interview myself...I mean, line up an interview with a BIG IMPORTANT INTERVIEWER GUY.
The results went about as well as expected.
BIG IMPORTANT INTERVIEW GUY (Who is Totally Not Jeremy Morong): So you have this new book, Someone Else Will Cover It Up.
Jeremy Morong:
Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, but the title is Someday We’ll Figure It All Out. I believe you’re thinking of a
book about the end of the Nixon Presidency.
BIIG: Aw, yes. My
mistake. So you have this book, Somebody Needs
to Find Someone to Love. How is it selling for you?
JM: Well, not as
well as I’d like or I wouldn’t be doing an interview with you, Mr. BIG IMPORTANT INTERVIEWER GUY.
BIIG: I see.
Well, perhaps it’s the title. It’s rather confusing. What does it mean?
JM: It’s meant to
be sort of provocative and ambiguous, see.
BIIG: Ambiguous?
What do frogs and toads have to do with it?
JM: No, I mean
ambiguity—that the title can have more significance than just one thing, that there’s
not one exact meaning though the phrase is used a time or two in
the book. An eye of the beholder sort
of thing. My hope is that it makes you think a bit.
BIIG: Think what?
JM: Hopefully, “I
think I want to buy this book.”
BIIG: See, there’s
the problem. I think a good title should tell you what the book’s about. Take Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,
for example. It’s about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
JM: So it is. Unless
you live anywhere else besides the US. Then it’s called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
BIIG: Now that’s
an entirely worthless bit of trivia. Are you always this much of a geek?
JM: No, not
always. Sometimes I sleep. (Laughs loudly, only coming to an uncomfortable stop when the
BIG IMPORTANT INTERVIEWER GUY doesn’t join in.)
All right, then. So what are some other good titles?
BIIG: Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince. See,
it’s about Harry Potter and the…
JM: Half-Blood
Prince. Yes, I understand. Are you aware of any great non-Harry Potter titles?
