Fictionaut Five: Jedediah Berry

Jedediah Berry‘s “distinctively surreal whodunit” (SF Chronicle)  The Manual of Detection has earned him comparisons with Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury, Jorge Louis Borges, and Terry Gilliam.  Kirkus called it “a boldly inventive deconstruction of Cartesian metaphysics, the criminal-justice system and the well-oiled detective story,” and Sarah Weinman wrote “I succumbed to the whimsy and wonder of what was inside…. Fall down the rabbit holes. Search for the missing alarm clocks. And prepare to expand your mind even a smidgen.”

Jedediah is an assisstant editor at Small Beer Press, and his official site is Third Archive.

If you weren’t a writer, how would you spend your time?

I’d be designing and playing games. There’s this board game I’ve always wanted to make called Blood Garden: each player is a child trying to break free from an evil garden full of carnivorous plants, moving statues, and fountains of poison. They use the garden’s hazards against each other, and only one child escapes to the goal, a place called Gluttonous Picnic.

Actually, what’s stopping me?

Which book do you wish you’d written?

I wish I’d written my second book. I wish I’d written it before I wrote my first book, but didn’t tell anyone, so I could just pull it out of my desk drawer right now.

Another book I wish I’d written is Umbrellas and Their History by William Sangster, if only to have been so brilliantly illustrated.

What are the websites you couldn’t live without?

I love the American Memory section of The Library of Congress, which is a treasure trove of maps, manifestos, photographs, and sound recordings. I’m a loyal subscriber to emusic.com. D.L. Ashliman’s Folklore and Mythology site is a taxonomic wonder. And I admit I’ve grown quite fond of twitter (I’m at http://twitter.com/jedediahberry).

What are you working on now?

I’m working on that second novel, and I’m writing lots of short stories. One will be in the next issue of Conjunctions. I’m also working on a board game called Blood Garden.

Do you listen to music while you write? What?

Usually I listen to instrumental music while I’m writing, because I find lyrics distracting. Some of my favorites include Michael Nyman’s soundtrack for Drowning by Numbers, David Byrne’s Lead Us Not Into Temptation, and most everything by the band Rachel’s (Handwriting, The Sea and the Bells, Systems/Layers). Anyone interested in the music behind The Manual of Detection can check out my Book Notes entry over at Largehearted Boy.