Inky Retching

The Love Book will stain your soul

By John Hood

People dig other people’s miseries. It makes them feel better about themselves. Self-absorbed, self-loathing makes no difference. We all like to look down. Which is to say that you’ll dig Ken Wohlrob’s The Love Book, whether you like yourself or not. In fact, if you compare its cavalcade of kooks to you and the folk you call friends, it’ll probably make you like yourself more.

There’s fat Grace, the accidental heavyweight wrestler whose ramshackle room on New Jersey’s foul-laned Route 9 gives her a perfect view of living hell; just Jasmine, the car-crash survivor with a stranger’s lazy eye insight into life, loss and love; the other Mike, who discovers that the sure cure for yellow fever is a healthy dose of Italian dressing; and a coterie of fogies who can’t keep from dropping dead on each other.

Mostly, though, The Love Book is the way reality reels us into our own odd askew — hard as truth, tough as luck and thrice as completing. Best, it comes in five fulfilling snippets, which makes it kinda like an inner flipbook of our so-called lives.

But don’t take my word for it; listen to the man himself.

Your story The Fabulous Omar is laced with incest, rape and erotic asphyxiation — are you kinky or just plain nuts?

None of the above; I just grew up in New Jersey.

Was there really an Omar the Gorilla Woman way back when?

Actually, the main character is based (very, very, very) loosely on The Fabulous Moolah, who wrestled from the 1940s up until the 1990s. As far as I know, none of the horrible things that happen to Grace in the story ever happened to Moolah. I remember seeing an interview with her from a documentary. You could see the scars of all those tough years in her skin. It was a roadmap of misery; very sad and eerie. And yet, the sick bastard in me couldn’t help but think, “That would make a hell of a story!”

There was also an obese woman in my hometown that my brothers and their friends referred to as “Omar the Gorilla Woman.” It was that sensitive New Jersey humor. If I remember correctly, she hung out in the dive bars along Route 46 waiting for last call, when some horny, drunk son-of-a-bitch, feeling desperate and amorous, would then drag her to an hourly rate motel room. It was one of those things you laugh at as a kid and then once you’ve seen that scenario too many times, you learn what a wretched outcome it is.

Both of those women infuse Grace. That character is all about the pain. It is that mass hanging around her body like Sisyphus’ rock on a necklace.

Yeah, what's with that fondness for truck stops?

If you’ve ever driven Route 80 through Pennsylvania, you know that stretch of truck stop towns: Emlenton, Hazen, Milesburg, Danville, the list goes on. These are the towns that are basically there to serve the highway traffic. It’s usually a gas station, a family diner, a McDonald’s or Wendy’s, the hourly rate motel and then a massive truck stop. You pull in to one of those stops, 11 p.m., snowy night, you’ve been fighting your way across the state, staying awake by drinking that bad coffee in the playing-card cups, and cranking the radio as loud as you can. Your legs hurt, your head hurts, your ass hurts, it’s freezing outside, you just want to get wherever the hell it is that you’re going to, but you can’t even remember because your mind stopped processing information due to the lack of stimuli. You’ve been staring at mile markers for the last two hours. Yes, indeedy; can’t beat that for good stories.

The youngest Sunset Estates resident in Taking the Happy Bus Home is 112 years old — isn't that a case of reverse ageism?

No, no, I’m celebrating the elderly — by having them commit suicide in droves.

Okay, you're about to have a virtual reading — why'd you decide to hype The Love Book on Second Life?

To be honest, I started using Second Life as part of a project for a day job. Lo and behold, I discovered there actually is a literary community in there of writers, poets, groups and even a regular schedule of television shows, book fairs and author readings. Everyone is very enthusiastic and motivated. At first, it seemed a bit weird, especially since my stories are so based in reality. It makes more sense for a fantasy or science fiction writer in so many ways. But the people I meet in-world are very receptive to my work, and like Facebook or GoodReads or Podiobooks (all of which I’m actively involved with); I view it as a wonderfully democratic way to expose people to my writing.

Next Wohlrob in the works?

A book on Satan. That’s all I’m saying.

Last but not least: How does it feel to be one of Bookslut.com’s Indie Heartthrobs?

You kidding? If anyone wants to give me the love, I’ll take it. I’m happy if anyone calls me a heartthrob, especially when it comes from a place that has been championing good literature for a few years now.

Ken Wohlrob reads from The Love Book, at 5 p.m. March 30 at Second Life’s Red Sky Club. Second Lifers can teleport here: www.slurl.com/secondlife/Cookie/58/121/24. You can also download a free PDF of the book here: www.kenwohlrob.com/books.html