Disclaimer: The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....
Set up page 69 for us. What
are we about to read?
Page 69 starts with the questionable phrase,
“hobbit with special needs.” Not an auspicious start, I know. But keep in mind
that description is coming from a dubious character in his own right. On this
page, a creepy media executive named Preston Price is staggering around in the
middle of a national forest in a state of dehydration and fatigue on a cockeyed
vision quest. A young man in a monster truck stops to help, and Preston behaves
like a jerk calling the young man “Cletus.”
What is your book about?
At its twisted little turnip-shaped heart,
this book is about body positivity. It explores why we sometimes feel bad about
our shapes and sizes, and how media is so good at exploiting people who have
been trained not to like their bodies. Part of the idea for this book came from
watching a commercial for the reality TV show Fear Factor, where people
were stuffing worms into their mouths for media attention. I thought, “Why
would those people eat worms for media fame?” Then I thought, “What would I eat
for media fame?” And then I started to imagine the people who think up and
produce shows like Fear Factor and Naked and Afraid. What about their
inner lives?
Do you think this page gives our readers an
accurate sense of what the book is about? Does it align itself with the book’s
overall theme?
I
would say that page 69 of Ballad of Jasmine Wills gives us clues about
our antagonist, Preston Price. It doesn’t introduce the reader to Jasmine, the
full-bodied firebrand at the center of the action. It’s the tension between
Preston and Jasmine that brings this novel to life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAGE 69
BALLAD OF JASMINE WILLS
Lee Rozelle’s debut novel Ballad of Jasmine Wills released this past December with Montag Press. Lee is the author of nonfiction books Zombiescapes & Phantom Zones and Ecosublime. He has published short stories in Cosmic Horror Monthly, HellBound Books‘ Anthology of Bizarro, Shadowy Natures by Dark Ink Books, If I Die Before I Wake Volume 3, and the Scare You to Sleep podcast. Learn more on his website.
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