Because Downtown insider Christopher Bollen is a badass author, he talks like a badass author. When speaking of his first novel,
Lightening People
, he says things like, "I had to create a city populated by isolated personalities that keep crashing into each other. To do that, I really had to flesh them out, give them private stories and hideous insecurities and nagging desires and a few stains on their clothes." Damn. If this is just how he speaks in an interview, waxing partial nostalgia, partial disdain for New York, imagine what unfolds in the book. And, Bollen (who is currently the Editor-at-Large for Interview) certainly has an insider's perspective on these "isolated personalities," though he claims there's no correlation between his compelling non-fictional characters and his real life crew (so, don't try to guess). But while Lightening People may not reflect his friends as they are, it seeks to portray New York as it really is. Bollen says, "I wanted...to reflect New York as it is, not some fantasy glossy version filled with endless shopping excursions, Champagne brunches, and the worst thing that could happen is sometimes you fall in love and you shed a few tears. To me, this immensely popular, utterly delusional version of New York is the real science fiction today. New York is hard, mean, ruthless and sometimes desperate, and the worst thing that could happen is you might become a demon." How uplifting! Well, if we don't become demons by Thursday, we'll meet you at his reading in Union Square. (T Magazine)