One of my very favorite travel writers (and a faculty member for our Youth Travel Blogging Mentorship Program) is Gary Buslik. He's often featured in the Best Travel Writing, and is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (lucky students!). You've read our review of A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean - and subsequently laughed your way through it, as I did.
Gary's got a new book out, and you'll want to make sure you get your hands on a copy! It's called Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls, and is pure comic genius. The plot centers around Iranian leader Ahkmed, and his partners in crime, the leaders of Venezuela and Cuba. Add in a pompous professor (you know exactly this stereotype, because he sits next to you in committee meetings), an ill-matched engaged couple, carnivorous termites, cruise ships, atomic matzo balls in tupperware, and an international pork convention on a cruise ship, and you'll be laughing out loud, as I did. My husband kept saying, "what, what?" and I'd read him the latest misadventures of the characters. Suffice it to say, all comes out well in the end, if you redefine what well means.
This is a true reading treasure, one of those books that comes along every few years that you can't put down (reading through the night, no matter what you're doing the next day) and that makes you smile, giggle, and laugh at the clever writing. Yes. This is it. He's done it again, and created a humorous masterpiece.
We caught up with Gary and asked him about the book, the possibility of atomic matzo balls, researching, and more. Here's what he had to say...
WE: Please tell us about your new novel, Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls.
GB: Akhmed is the very funny (I've been told) story of how three bumbling, despotic dictators—the presidents of Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba—and their American intelligence agents plot to destroy America by smuggling radioactive matzo balls into Miami Beach. But "intelligence" being as slippery a concept to these nincompoops as chicken fat on linoleum, their plan eventually sinks like a lead dumpling.
WE: What inspired you to write this book?
GB: I honestly don't remember. It's like trying to recall dreams. My ideas come from some deep, mysterious part of my brain that may as well belong to another person. I just moved into a new house and have a new phone number. My friends tell me that when I call, their caller IDs show a person named "Douglas Renz." I suppose this is the previous owner of this phone number, and the phone company hasn't gotten around to changing it. Or it might be my alter-ego, the person whose brain my writing ideas come from, and I quite like that possibility. So, for the answer to your question, you'll have to ask Douglas Renz. He's with another customer at the moment, but your call is important to him.
WE: Atomic matzo balls – really?
GB: My cousin Linda makes matzo balls roughly the size of the first atomic bomb. They pretty much take up the entire bowl, so there's room for only a thimbleful of soup. They're very tasty matzo balls, but as you might imagine, they sit heavily in your intestines for about a month. Someone in the family, possibly Douglas Renz, nicknamed these "atomic matzo balls," and the name stuck—just like the matzo balls in our intestines. When Iran's nuclear program stalled (again, like Linda's matzo balls in our intestines), I guess my subconscious put two and two together.
WE: How do you create your characters? They seem like both people we know well and complete strangers.
GB: The truth is, I'm not very good at creating real-life characters. That's why I write comedy. Readers will give you all kinds of leeway, as long as you make them laugh. My characters seem familiar because we've grown up watching these kind of goofs in TV sitcoms. It's no coincidence, I think, that in this book the villains take the code names "Little Buddy," "Thurston," "Lovey," "the Skipper," and "the Professor." I take stereotypes and pump them up to the extreme. At the same time, though, I put these characters in real-world situations, scary situations we see in the news every day, and let them act and express themselves in ways that would never have been allowed on television. So in that sense they're both familiar and, as you say, like complete strangers.
WE: How do you research the settings of your book, in so many different locations?
GB: Well, first of all, as a travel writer, I've been all over the world. I have, in fact, visited the regions and cities in the book: the Middle East, Venezuela, Cuba, New York, Miami, Chicago. But I still find the Internet indispensable. There are neighborhoods and individual streets in the book that I found on Google Maps. I love research—it's one of writing's great pleasures. This, too, comes from my nonfiction writing background. In fiction it's OK to be fanciful, but it's important to be accurate, lest you break the spell. Readers will gladly go along with almost anything imaginative, as long as they don't see the figurative camera in the mirror.
WE: Is there anything else you'd like to share with us?
GB: Yes. Life is hard, but, really, it's very funny.
WE: Thanks so much, Gary! I love your book and recommend it to - well, not everyone. Not the crabby people. But definitely those who love to laugh.
Article by Jessica Voigts