Did this choice pose any problems with McSweeneys when they were putting The People of Paper together?
In terms of layout, if you look at the McSweeney’s background, after they did the Vollman book and the Robert Coover story, in terms of topography and the material of the book, they’ve already done these crazy things. They were happy to do it. And the cut out was actually my editor’s idea. Before it was just blacked out, but it conflicted with the Baby Nostradamus, so that was their idea. It was like, “Let’s fix this somehow, is this a possibility? Let’s cut this out!” So, there was this excitement about it. It was very intriguing. But then I found myself trying to see if there was some duality there, some other meaning behind the cut outs. Because of these stylistic nuances and the story itself being told in a non-standard way, does it bother you that the book in some cases has been labeled “experimental”? It’s experimental, it’s meta-fiction, it’s surrealist, it’s a war novel. I mean, there are all these different things you can call it but I’m okay with it as long as it’s not being
