Jonathan Evison profile picture

Jonathan Evison

Semper experimentum

About Me

I'm a happy guy. I like rabbits. I have eight of them. They're cute little fuckers with names like Javier and Little Turkey. I live out in the woods on an island in puget sound, where I spend the majority of my time writing and sitting in the bathtub. I make all my business calls from the bathtub. People are always saying: "What's that echo? Are you in a bus station?" I say: "No, I'm in my office." Pretty cool, huh? I'm developing something I call the sweats to pants ratio (SPR), by which success is measured relative to the days one spends in formal versus casual attire (formal being anything with pockets). By this measure, seven days a week in sweats is the pinnacle of success. I'm at about five-to-two right now. Pretty damn succesful. I think Rick Rubin holds the record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .If you want to know more about me, or my writing, just ask: Also, if you love books, check out my book discussion group (not MY book, but general discussion): . . . . . . . . . . . . http://groups.myspace.com/thefictionfiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . if you have some sort of an aversion to ellipses, i recommend you read no further than this . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . if you want to read some excerpts from my forthcoming collection THE REVISED FUNDAMENTALS OF CAREGIVING, go here: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/jonathan_evison/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . also, my novel, ALL ABOUT LULU, will be released by SOFT SKULL PRESS in July of '08, and is currently available for pre-sale on amazon, powells.com. borders.com, etc, etc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . somebody called ALL ABOUT LULU "a freakishly charming tale of star-crossed would-be step-sibling love in a family of failed bodybuilders in suburban los angeles." . . . i can live with that . . . the movie rights have been optioned by crossroads films . . .maybe someday i'll get to have sex with bette davis (oh, wait, she's dead) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .here's what some book people have said about ALL ABOUT LULU in advance-- i didn't even pay them (much): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."Most novels in which a boy must oil up his bodybuilder father for competition would merit our attention, but that detail is just one of many amazements on offer in All About Lulu. Will the Thrill is a great literary charmer, and through his rich voice Jonathan Evison has concocted a funny and painfully honest piece of fiction." -Sam Lipsyte, author of Homeland . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."All About Lulu is a novel of tremendous energy and heartbreaking, hilarious insight, a novel with a heart of gold. In a manner that is both breathless and effortless, Evison reminds us of life's beautiful oddity. A remarkable debut." -Brad Listi, author of Attention Deficit Disorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."All About Lulu is an exhilarating, wholly original and brave novel about obsession, love and becoming. With Will Miller, Evison has created a thoroughly modern protagonist steeped in Dickensian complexity, pure yet conflicted, lost yet driven to find truth in the dysfunctional American abyss." -James P. Othmer, author of The Futurist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .“At once exuberant and clear-eyed, scabrous and wise, Jonathan Evison's All About Lulu has something for every reader--love, betrayal, growth and, ultimately, redemption--all wrapped in the addictive voice of William Miller, Evison's fiercely likeable narrator. A fine debut from a writer to watch.” -Keith Dixon, author of The Art of Losing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."Evison's voice is as fresh as this morning's rain . . . read this book and realize you're not the only one knocked stupid for love." -Tim Sandlin, author of Western Swing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."Evison’s debut is an absolute knockout . . .this novel will invite its readers to redefine love and the functional family and the promise of America all at once. All About Lulu is a marvel, a book to savor and reread." -Natalia Rachel Singer, author of Redemption Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .“All About Lulu is a fascinating meditation on growing up and growing inward, a wry portrait of the American family in all its excessive, dysfunctional, heartbreaking purity.” -Josh Emmons, author of The Loss of Leon Meed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."The star-crossed lovers at the center of All About Lulu forge a middle ground between Archie and Veronica and Kurt and Courtney. Evison has delivered a witty, understated, heartfelt, and, at times, almost unnervingly honest debut." -Adam Langer, author of Crossing California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."Jonathan Evison is a killer talent, and "All About Lulu" is the kind of novel readers have been hungry for: Funny, smart, entertaining -- an all around delight. Literary fiction needs more books like this; maybe then people would stop talking about the Death of the Novel and just read and enjoy themselves" - Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."Evison keeps all kinds of balls up in the air, seemingly without effort. All About Lulu is the happiest sad story around, a meditation on the meaning of family, and how we fit amongst the people we love and misunderstand." - Greg Downs, author of Spit Baths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .UPDATE: my SPR has slipped back to 4-3 in recent days-- let's hope this isn't a trend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .UPDATE UPDATE: back at 5-2 with me eyes on the prize, baby! sweats 24/7!!! . . . i'm going to stop washing them once i hit 6-1 . . . and maybe add an old bathrobe or a bedsheet to the ensemble . . .and a bottle of jack daniels . . . and once i hit 7-0, and i have nowhere to go but the other direction, i'll get one of those controlling business managers who ends up embezzling from me and trying to steal my wife . . . and i'll start collecting my urine in baby food bottles like howard hughes . . . oh yeah, and i'll invite people over for big yahtzee parties, and when i beat them, i'll make them cut off their pubic hair and put it in marked envelopes, and i'll keep them in a filing cabinet, so they can try to win it back next time . . . eventually, they'll come for me . . . i don't know who they are-- whether it will be aliens or dudes with butterfly nets or just some irs stooges, but somebody will come for me and take me away somewhere (either a spaceship, an institution, or just down to my office where i keep my tax forms next to my pubic hair envelopes) . . . i hope you guys will still be my friends after that happens . . .cheers, je

My Interests

reading, writing, philosophy, bloody-midget porn, stumbling around drunk in the woods late at night, that kind of thing.

I'd like to meet:

other happy people who like rabbits . . . optimistic people . . . people who wear the same ugly green pants to Christmas dinner every year BECAUSE they're ugly (or better yet, people who just wear sweats). . . an accountant who wants to work for free . . . prophets, i like meeting prophets (even if they talk to parking meters). readers, always enjoy meeting big readers. . . oh, and anyone who wants to buy me a beer . . .

Music:

Everything from Bach to Count Basie to the Black Keys

Movies:

The Big Lebowski. Office Space. Waiting for Guffman. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. They Live.

Television:

Not much.

Books:

Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend John Fante - Ask the Dust Bohumil Hrabal - I Served the King of England Budd Schulberg - What Makes Sammy Run Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose Philip Roth - The Human Stain Cervantes - Don Quixote Voltaire - Candide Brief Interviews with Hideous Men -D.F. Wallace Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon The Day of the Locust - Nathaniel West Benito Cereno - Herman Melville Blood Meridian- Cormac McCarthy A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh Journey to the End of Night - Louis Ferdinand Celine A Sentimental Education - Gustave Flaubert The Brothers Karamozov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail Lermontov The Iliad - Homer Berlin Stories - Christopher Isherwood The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad Call of the Wild - Jack London Denis Johnson- Jesus' Son Par Lagerkvist- Barabbas Ragtime-E.L. Doctorow The Sportswriter-Richard Ford Sophie's Choice-William Styron Trout Fishing in Amerca-Richard Brautigan A River Runs Through it - Norman Mclean Deliverance-James Dickey Catch 22-Joseph Heller Piere and Jean-Guy de Maupassant Sam Lipsyte-Homeland Elmer Gantry- Sinclair Lewis The Magnificent Ambersons- Booth Tarkington The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake Where I'm Calling From - Raymond Carver Middlemarch-George Eliot The Corrections-Jonathan Franzen Gargantua- Rabelais Josh Emmons -The Loss of Leon Meed Graham Greene - The Power and the Glory Adam Langer - Crossing California Carson Mccullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Ambrose Bierce- The Devil's Dictionary The Natural - Bernard Malamud . . . i won't go on for now. i like books . . . okay, i lied, here's some others: Dog Soldiers--Robert Stone The Known World-Edward P. Jones Look Homeward Angel-Thomas Wolfe Ironweed -William Kennedy Dubliners-James Joyce Places I've Done Time- William Saroyan Letters from the Earth- Mark Twain McTeague- Frank Norris Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers - Larrry Mcmurtry My Life and Hard Times - James Thurber 100 Years of Solitude - G.G. Marques Ficciones - J.L. Borges Appointment in Sammara - John O'Hara The Moviegoer - Walker Percy A Death in the Family- James Agee All About Lulu - Jonathan Evison (thought i'd slip that one in) The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow

Heroes:

The guy who invented beer.

My Blog

all about lulu excerpt

 . . . if anybody's interested, here's a link to an excerpt from all about lulu knock is running along with an interview in their upcoming issue-- they've also posted it online (obviously) . . . ...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Sat, 03 May 2008 12:22:00 PST

notes from the right coast

 . . .caveat: i've had way more than a few, but i felt like i had to blog this shit now, or i'd never get around to it . . . my life is so beautifully wierd . . . this 39th generation peasant run...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:37:00 PST

knock interview

 . . . yeah, so here’s an interview i did recently for a journal called knock, who are running a couple lulu excerpts along with the interview . . . bryan tomasovich at knock was the first ...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:55:00 PST

thanks, friends

. . . a great big thanks to those who pre-ordered lulu on amazon . . . it makes things feel official, now-- strangely less like the beginning of something, and more like the end of something-- the fea...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:29:00 PST

quito, in conclusion

 . . . finally got around to transcribing the last of my ecuador notes . . . i'm still waiting for the little german dude to send me the underwater photos from the galapagos . . . wish i had some...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:41:00 PST

galapago travel notes 2

Part Two: Quito.   I am inspired by Ecuadorian inefficiency. The average Ecuadorian citizen spends roughly forty percent of his life standing in line. If I went into the postcard business, a...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:56:00 PST

galapagos travel notes 1

current mood: still latin . . . Part One: The archipelago. I've decided I wanna come back as a Galapagos sea lion. Seriously. They're livin' the dream. Bountiful food, no predators, plenty of compan...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:43:00 PST

HELP! i’m stuck in latin myspace!

 . . . BTW, most of my galapagos photos are mixed in with my regular photos . . . so, in case you just looked in the folder titled galapagos, you missed most of them. . . god, i'm such a technica...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:31:00 PST

good news!

 . . . so, as the icing on what has already been an amazing vacation, i found out from my agent this afternoon that we've optioned the film rights to "all about lulu!" . . . i'm pretty stoked, as...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:17:00 PST

happy holidays, friends!

 . . . just posted this as a bulletin, but am posting it here, as well . . .. . . just wanted to wish my friends a happy holidays! . . . i sincerely hope the season finds you warm and safe and am...
Posted by Jonathan Evison on Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:19:00 PST