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Thursday, August 28, 2008

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Michael Malone

Author Michael Malone – of Foolscap and Justin & Cuddy fame – picks his favorite pork shop, dotes on Carol Burnett, and explains his night-owl writing process.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rosecrans Baldwin
TMN co-editor Rosecrans Baldwin lives in Paris, France. He founded The Morning News with Andrew Womack in 1999 and has been waking up early ever since. He currently writes the Letters from Paris column. His work has elsewhere appeared in The New York Times, New York, The Nation, and on NPR’s All Things Considered. His personal web site is useless. Every month he makes a new Muxtape. Someday his ashes will be tossed off Mount Desert Island. His first novel, You Lost Me There, is coming out soon with Riverhead Books.
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Michael Malone is the author of many remarkable books, including our personal favorites, The Justin Savile and Cuddy Mangum Series. Malone's next book,The Last Noel, will be out this November

DOB: The 1940s

Daily writing process: Nine to five. (Nine at night till five in the mornings.)

Occupations in another life: Do you mean wished-for occupations? Trumpet player, defense lawyer. Real other jobs? Waiter, clerk, usher, college professor.

Favorite books: Canterbury Tales, Tom Jones, Great Expectations, Faulkner’s The Hamlet

Best BBQ in North Carolina: Bullocks in Durham. And go to Akai Hana in Carrboro for great literary sushi.

What makes you laugh: Satire and parody: Sid Caesar’s old Show of Shows, Carol Burnett Show, E.F. Benson Lucia novels. But I’ll laugh at any kind of comedy. Screwball, romantic, slapstick, drawing room, juvenile. Anything from Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde to Airplane and Naked Gun.

Character you've written that you're closest to: It’s schizophrenic with me. Cuddy Mangum (he’s ironic and political) and Justin Savile V (he’s nostalgic and romantic).

Heroes : Martin Luther King, Emma Goldman

Charity worth giving to: Southern Poverty Law Center

Five words that sound good: Grace, generous, kindness, bravery, Liberal
—Published June 20, 2002