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A Portrait of Yo Mama as a Salt Contributor Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts -- 03/27/2005  Interview with Andrew Barlow and Kent Robertsby Paul Grellong Andrew Barlow and Kent Roberts went to college together. I went to college with them. For this interview I chose to do away with pesky things like objectivity and hard questions. My enthusiasm for their book of humor writing, "A Portrait of Yo Mama as a Young Man," is genuine because their book is genuinely great. Their comedy is sharp, smart, and, more importantly, very funny. Barlow's humor writing has appeared, among other places, in The New Yorker. Roberts is a contributor to The Onion, and is the publisher/chief columnist/subject of the widely read Kent-Roberts-themed newspaper Kent. For this, their first co-written book, they assembled a dizzying array of facts in order to present an airtight case against Yo Mama. For example: Yo mama's so lupine, she barks, moans, whines, woofs, yelps, whimpers, growls, and snarls, but what really excites naturalists and laypersons alike is her howl. Read on and weep; from laughter, yes, but also because you may slowly come to realize that Barlow and Roberts have got Yo Mama's number. * * * SALTMAG.NET: Your book "A Portrait of Yo Mama as a Young Man" is coming out in two weeks, right? On March 29? KENT ROBERTS: Its on-sale date is March 22, its pub date is March 29, and if anyone knows the difference between those two they can share that with us. SALT: So, for writers who are not named John Grisham, what are the two weeks leading up to publication like? What are you guys doing now? ANDREW BARLOW: Fidgeting a lot. We have some radio interviews lined up, which is something we just found out about. SALT: That's great. Where? KR: Andrew is speaking to Mancow on Tuesday, if you know who that is. It's like a Howard-Stern-type show. [Note: In the end, Roberts did the Mancow interview. ] AB: I thought my name was John Grisham. I'm a little confused. SALT: That's how you got the original deal, right? AB: Yeah, that's true. Now it's becoming all too clear. KR: They thought it was written by John Grisham and another guy whose pseudonym was "John Grisham," who also may have written some of John Grisham's books. AB: Those were the two names on the proposal. KR: Yeah. John Grisham and . . . AB: "John Grisham." In quotes. SALT: Speaking of proposals, how did you go from original concept to the book that's about to come out? KR: We wrote up a basic idea and then had it ghostwritten. By John Grisham. AB: We wrote up something that was basically, what was it, Kent, just maybe 100 jokes? KR: Yeah, something around there. 100 or 150 jokes, and the initial idea was just jokes. That was what was sent out in our proposal along with marketing ideas and various other stuff. We had two meetings, and basically our only solid meeting was . . . I'll let you continue, Andrew. end of page 1 [ 1 ] read more ... [ 2 ][ 3 ][ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ] |
