Interview with Dr. John Andrew Fredrick, Author of THE KING OF GOOD INTENTIONS III #interview

 

"Kneeling there, in front of her, between her parted legs in those uncommonly soft, torn, and almost preposterously familiar favorite jeans, she reclining there, singularly recumbent, on the big plush brown L-shaped corduroy sectional couch with pale lemon piping in our enormous upstairs living room, she weeping quietly, and me with horribly rainy eyes as well, the twin “orphan” footstools shunted aside to make room for me as I rested my head for a bit on her trembling shoulders, first the left, then the right, intermittently pecking her neck, her sinking pale pink mouth, the little puerile filaments of spittle forming in the corners there, brushing the salty tears from her cheeks with the backs of my hands, right, left, sampling them, those teardrops, with the softest sweetest saddest kisses—I kept thinking that this whole sorry sordid muddle-and-mess simply did not have to be, didn’t have to happen. And that of
course it did."

-- From The King of Good Intentions III by John Andrew Fredrick

Book Description:

As The Weird Sisters return from their first What-Could-Go-Wrong (spoiler alert – everything) National Tour, bandmates/lovers John and Jenny face their iffy futures together (or apart) as the brilliant and mysterious Katie upends the romantic/artistic balance that’s been precarious-at-best. The unmitigated vanity, the mythopoeic beauty, the megalomania and heartbreak, the exquisite talent and ludicrous hubris – it’s all here in Fredrick’s wonderful, tart-sweet, final installment.   

Interview:

Your series, The King of Good Intentions, sounds absolutely intriguing! Can we begin by having you give us a brief description of John and Jenny?  

 

Oh, they're both artists through and through; and tortured in quite different ways about their status as makers of art.  Jenny's very humble and talented and John's very much a work-in-progress, full of piss and vinegar, but with a heart of gold.  Fools gold, perhaps, at times.  He's terribly cynical, but I think a cynic is just a front for a hopeful person:  he or she WANTS desperately for people to be better... and they somehow rarely ARE.

 

What was your inspiration behind The Weird Sisters?

 

Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth.  Seriously, all music is sorcery, is it not?  It either casts a spell on you or it doesn't.  Full stop.

 

What's one of the pivotal points in your 3rd book in the series, The King of Good Intentions III, where the reader will have trouble putting the book down?

 

When John gets back from having worked on a positively ridiculous hair metal band's video for three archetypal days in the desert and he knows he is gonna pursue the brainy beauty he met on it--despite the fact that he has a girlfriend who is IN his band.  Curtains, for John!

 

Is this the last of the series or will there be more books?

 

In my end is my beginning.  You'll see. But no, I've done what Harold Bloom said a poet's duty was:  to write himself OUT. 

 

I understand you are a member of a rock band? Can you tell us more about that?

 

Well, I'll just provide you with a couple of quotations from prominent rags--how's that?  The Independent UK once described the black watch as 'New Orderish melodies in a street fight with the Velvet Underground'; and The Austin Chronicle referred to us as 'My Bloody Valentine meeting up with Nick Drake--chaos in the calm, mayhem in the melodies.' I would sort of concur, comparisons being egregious and all, as the saying goes; but some reviewers and fans focus a bit more on the lyrics, which aren't poetry, mind you, and never will be, but are surely poetic.  The whole lyrics v. poetry thing is sort of interesting--and a topic for another day.

 

What's your next literary step? More books?

 

I have a thriller that I need to find a publisher for. Very Hitchcock, very funny, very sick, actually.  Murderously so.