In honor of Halloween, a haunted post of sorts...
Here's a great question a friend recently asked about The Marbury Lens -- and it's a question that nobody else had ever come close to posing before.
He asked: If you were Jack or Conner, would you be able to resist going back to Marbury?
Well, and this relates entirely to the astronaut posting of a couple days ago... yes, of course I would go back. How could I stop myself? I go back every night when I'm lying in bed, trying to go to sleep. That's what the book is really all about. [Note: I do not have to "try" to go to sleep. I have no problem doing that at all, as a matter of fact.]
The Marbury Lens isn't a story about putting on some tripped-out glasses and stepping into an alternate universe. The novel is about the inability to let go of things, the compulsion to revisit the events from the past that screw you up, wondering how different things might be if you were born someone else. And all those discomforting issues are wrapped up nicely inside a thick coating of self-doubt, teenage rage about being ignored, the adolescent wondering about sexuality, if you're normal, being afraid of connecting with someone and exposing your vulnerabilities; and all of this while imagining yourself -- as teenagers naturally do -- as the center of the universe.
Yeah... welcome to Marbury, Jack. Save a seat for me.
