Patrick Lenton is an author and journalist from Melbourne. He is the author of the short story collection ‘A Man Made Entirely Out Of Bats’, the comedic essay collection Uncle Hercules and Other Lies, and the upcoming Sexy Tales Of Paleontology. He has just finished up his role as Editor of pop-culture and news website Junkee.
Today, Patrick Lenton is on the blog to answer a few questions about Sexy Tales of Paleontology. Read on …
Patrick Lenton (Photo by Daniel Boud).
Please tell us about your book, Sexy Tales of Paleontology!
PL: Sexy Tales of Paleontology is a collection of just absurd, funny stories about heartbreak and weird science. For some reason, every thought and feeling I’ve had about romance and the cataclysmic ending of it, is best told through the medium of robots and aliens and stuff. It’s funny, but it’s also super sad, which I guess is life?
What appeals to you about reading and writing short stories?
PL: Every year our phones break our brains even more and our attention spans become shorter. I can barely get through a novel anymore and I was one of those kids whose only personality was “loves to read”. I blame phones, and maybe chemtrails. Anyway! It means I feel a lot of joy when I read a short story, a lot of success. I like to write short stories for my people: those with chemically smooth brains.
Queer love and heartbreak are pretty central to the stories in Sexy Tales of Paleontology. How much of this has stemmed from your own experiences?
PL: Every single story was written after a breakup, over a period of five years. Many breakups, many stories … My coping mechanism seems to be depression and then a burst of very manic creativity. It’s also much cheaper than therapy.
Which story in the book do you feel the most strongly about?
PL: The first story in the book is called ’43 Rats’, and It’s about a huge pile of rats that are covered by a ratty old trenchcoat. It’s based entirely on a feeling I had when I first started dating men but wasn’t out, and felt like I had this horrible seething secret inside me, that was very poorly hidden.
‘For some reason, every thought and feeling I’ve had about romance and the cataclysmic ending of it, is best told through the medium of robots and aliens and stuff.’
You’ve spent the last few years as the editor of Junkee.com. Can you talk about how your love of pop culture influences your fiction writing?
PL: What I love about pop culture is the rich and stupid world of stories – you get introduced to so many larger than life characters, and immersed in odd narrative. One of my stories is called ‘Jim Kardashian’, where I theorise what it would be like to be the uncool uncle in the Kardashian family – not because I like the family, but because they’re so fascinating. I love to bring this energy, and these recognisable figures into my work and play with them.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey towards becoming a writer?
PL: All I’ve ever wanted to do really is write! I studied Creative Writing at Wollongong University, which was amazing and stupid, and since then I’ve been steadily writing. Sexy Tales is my third book.
Which authors or books do you typically turn to for inspiration?
PL: For Sexy Tales I read a lot of Julie Koh and Tom Cho – they have the precise blend of surrealism and absurdity that I want in my work, and they are favourites of mine.
What is the last book you read and loved?
PL: I read Eamonn Mara’s 2000ft Above Worry Level recently, at a time of high anxiety and doldrums, and it was PERFECT and relatable.
What do you hope readers will discover in Sexy Tales of Paleontology?
PL: I hope that readers will laugh a lot but also find that moment of relatability about the weirder parts of romance, the less glamorous bits.
And finally, what’s up next for you?
PL: I am finally going to write a novel, I keep procrastinating. I’m gonna do it. It’s gonna be about a famous dog.
Thanks Patrick!
—Sexy Tales of Paleontology by Patrick Lenton (Subbed In) is out now.
Sexy Tales of Paleontology
A pile of rats having an identity crisis. A sexy robot rebellion. A velociraptor revenge wedding. The world's horniest scientist. Enter 'Sexy Tales of Paleontology': a world of queer romance, (dis)connection, and artifical intelligence told with Patrick Lenton's idiosyncratic bizarreness and heart.
Lenton's short stories combine laugh-out-loud humour with an honest-to-goodness sensibility. Sci-fi oddities, pop culture, a lesser-known Kardashian who lives on the moon, and a deft turn of comic absurdity bound through this truly queer romp of a book...
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