My
first novel, furtl, was a 2014 Kirkus Reviews book
of the year selection. The absurd near future of that book became not-so-absurd
one year later – a
xenophobic reality show president rose to power by exploiting social networks
and sowing division. OOF: An Online Outrage Fiesta for the Ages was released in
mid-2021. Not a sequel. But it does seek to provide similar catharsis for
readers who can’t seem to shake their belief that It. Can. Always. Get.
Stupider.
I wrote...
OOF: An Online Outrage Fiesta for the ages
By
Strobe Witherspoon
What is my book about?
Award-winning
novelist and cultural critic Strobe Witherspoon interrogates his own
profession. It goes terribly. Strobe
Witherspoon just sold his latest satirical novel for a lot of money. The book
in question, FLOTUS: A Memoir, is a fictitious autobiography about
a former first lady of the United States reflecting on years of misery at the
hands of her much older POTUS husband. When a chapter is leaked in advance of
the book's publication, an Online Outrage Fiesta (OOF) ensues via news outlets,
blogs, Twitter, troll farms, and everything in between. Witherspoon has his
life placed under a microscope. Family secrets are exposed. Now, an anthology
has been put together to document Witherspoon’s downfall—and settle the score.
OOF explores the
role of satire in a society lurching from one ridiculous crisis to the next,
where media outlets rely on clicks to stay alive and everything is filtered
through a lens of anger and misinformation.
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The Books I Picked & Why
Gulliver's Travels
By
Jonathan Swift
Why this book?
The standard bearer of idiotic journeys. This eighteenth-century
funhouse mirror displays the underbelly of the human condition from many absurd
angles, including but not limited to xenophobic violence, intellectual hubris,
and false idol worship.
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Catch-22
By
Joseph Heller
Why this book?
War brings out the dumb in all of us. This book hits home for anyone that’s horrified by the alteration and weaponization of the English language from those holding power. The high-stakes bureaucratic incompetence and illogical war-time decision-making birthed its own special kind of paradox – the Catch-22 – that unfortunately never goes out of fashion.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By
Douglas Adams
Why this book?
I use the word absurd a lot. Never has its usage been more appropriate
than for this book. A [absurd] sendup of science fiction convention filled
with [absurd] characters doing [absurd] things all across multiple [absurd]
universes that somehow all makes sense in the end, particularly since none of
it makes any sense. It’s, you guessed it, ridiculous.
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The Sellout
By
Paul Beatty
Why this book?
The Sellout is a satirical treatise on the lengths humans will go to reject, deny, or literally erase, injustice. It skewers any pretense of a post-racial America, telling the story of a small town in California that brings back segregation and slavery. The outlandish uproar that ensues reveals the deep division that persists in America and the discomfort in addressing it.
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Dear Committee Members
By
Julie Schumacher
Why this book?
Intellectuals are dumb. Particularly when they are navigating their own
insecurity and ambition. Told through a series of ill-advised and awkwardly personal
letters to various scholastic and literary entities, this book shines a comic
light on the world of petty, festering academic grievance.