Special Edition: The Marvin K. Mooney Society

Seems like everywhere I turn lately I read something or hear something about this mysterious writer called Marvin K. Mooney. I read (and loved) his piece at Abjective, then got an email last night pointing me to this piece at For Every Year, which seems to be written in a pirate vernacular.

The email was from The Marvin K. Mooney Society.

I highly suggest checking it out.

Since it peaked my interest, I did a little research and found this very awkward 1996 New York Times interview with Mooney. Here are a few choice snippets from that interview:



Interviewer: Let's begin with the origin of your name.

Marvin K. Mooney: I don't want to discuss my name.

Interviewer: That's too bad. I think readers would be interested to learn how you came to be named after a character in a Dr. Seuss book.

Marvin K. Mooney: I'm not interested in what readers might be interested in.


***


Interviewer: Some accuse your work of being purposefully difficult, overtly opaque, and ultimately disconnected from the human experience. How would you respond to those allegations?

Marvin K. Mooney: Who do you mean by “some”?

Interviewer: Well, I suppose I mean those in the literary community.

Marvin K. Mooney: What literary community?

Interviewer: Readers of books, academics, intellectuals, book reviewers, critics and the like.

Marvin K. Mooney: Well, I suppose if they’re right then my work is a triumph beyond anything anyone has ever seen before.

Interviewer: How so?

Marvin K. Mooney: Think about it. A human being capable of creating something disconnected from the human experience? That’s unparalleled.


***


Interviewer: Are you interested in notoriety?

Marvin K. Mooney: What do you mean?

Interviewer: As a writer, do you think about posterity, whether or not your work will be remembered or forgotten in a thousand years?

Marvin K. Mooney: I want to be famous or I want to be forgotten. That is what it means to be an American. Mediocrity is utterly unacceptable. Extremity is the only viable ontology remaining.


***


Interviewer: Who are you influences?

Marvin K. Mooney: My mother, my father, and Phil Collins.


***


Other than that interview, I couldn't find very much else about him. It doesn't seem like he's published any books, although the email I got last night suggested that a collection of his work was forthcoming -- but it didn't say when or by what publisher. Also, there's no Wikipedia entry for him, and when I Googled him all I got back was a bunch of Dr. Seuss links.

Mina, Nippa, Opsy, Poll

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