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Q: What in the world is the Blessed Virgin Mary doing in a kayak in the Arizona desert?
A: There’s a perfectly logical explanation, and then there’s the truth, which unfolds along with other astonishing literary imagery in the novel Graphic Times.
Q: Is Graphic Times a graphic novel?
A: No, except for the cover, all the images are literary. Graphic Times is the name of a fictional tabloid in the novel. (See one of the publisher’s alternate book covers, right.) The title also represents the protagonist’s newfound sense of his world, which compels him to abandon his black-and-white journalistic style of writing - and thinking - for a colorful, graphically descriptive narrative, like Dorothy’s journey from Kansas to Oz.
Q: What is that figure on the cover?
A: Kokopelli is a mysterious flute player whose image was etched on rock formations throughout the Southwest more than a thousand years ago. He has become a ubiquitous symbol for the mythology and mysticism of that region.
Q: Is Graphic Times a mystery novel?
A: It’s not the usual formulaic, cozy-whodunit-ah-ha!-next please mystery novel. It’s a literary novel about a mystery.
Q: What is a century plant?
A: A century plant, also known as the agave and the maguey, is a flowering desert plant steeped in mythology. See photo of author’s 46-year-old agave, right
Q: What is a Sunbeam?
A: A classic British roadster. The Sunbeam Alpine IV, right, is one of two restored by the author. Grace Kelly drove Cary Grant in a Sunbeam in “To Catch a Thief.” It was the very first Bond car in “Dr. No.” And Elizabeth Taylor crashed hers in her only Academy Award winning performance in the film “Butterfield 8,” which was a disappointing adaptation of one of the great early John O’Hara novels.
Q: Where is Einstein’s brain?
Q: Are our souls losing weight?
Q: What has 400 breasts?
Q: Do dragons really exist?
Q: How old is the Psychic Child Estelle?
Q: Is it safe to pick up a hitchhiking bear?
Q: What do the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mayahuel, Agave, and Jettie Wetherill have in common?
Q: Are the works of George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Merton, Joseph Pulitzer, Dante, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti relevant?
Q: How far will Zeno’s paradox take Anthony Logan toward solving the mystery of Graphic Times?
Q: Why does Jettie call him Rip?
Q: What ever happened to the Daily Graphic?
Q: What’s a grifa?
Q: Is Archie Archibald a private eye, a town marshal, a ranch hand, or a cowboy poet?
Q: Is seeing believing, or is it the other way around?
Q: Who is potatosEye?
Q: Did Lucia mean the sun or the son?
Q: Can a person vanish in thin air?
Q: Why does a reporter need a peg?
Q : How old is the oldest tree in the world?
Q: Where can I buy a garden grotesque?
Q: What’s a slot canyon?
Q: What turns water green?
Q: Was Peter DiSanti guilty?
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