Featured Interview With Jeffrey Matucha
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a San Francisco Bay Area native, born and raised. I came of age in the racous San Francisco Eighties, a time that was simply Sodom and Gomorrah, and I dived head first into the alt cultures in this crazy region, cultures that I am still very much a part of. I live in Berkeley, a city I am destined to never leave.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started reading at an early age thanks to my mother. Some of my early favorites were James Thurber and Roald Dahl along with Dr Seuss. As a tween I went through my Russian writer phase with Dostoyevsky and Tolsoty, and eventually discovered Hunter S Thompson and Jack Kerouac, among many others.
I have always written, but did not start formally writing until my late twenties. I used writing as a means to try and get myself together, especially with my struggles with substance abuse.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Among my favorite writers: The aforementioned James Thurber, Richard Wright, (Everyone needs to read Native Son,) Dostoyevsky, WEB Dubois, (Okay not fiction, so sue me,) Tolstoy, Janet Frame, Groucho Marx, David Sedaris, Ann Petry, Hunter S Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and Kim Acrylic. My go to for graphic novels is the Hernandez Brothers, Jaime and Golbert, with their Love and Rockets series.
Wright, Thompson, Petry, and Bukowski are huge influences. As are the Hernandez Brothers.
These days I’ve been diving into a lot of non-fiction, especially Mary Roach, Sarah Vowell, and Brian Greene.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Clubber is a book about a man I can’t stand. I decided to take a dive into the mind of a shallow and self-absorbed person and ended up getting lost in this character. A man who goes to great pains to deny his true self and ends up paying for it. It’s also a harrowing tale of 1980’s San Francisco, a subject that hasn’t been written about nearly enough.
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