The Patricidal Bedside Companion
The Patricidal Bedside Companion was my first novel: a cleansing of the soul, if you will, of my feelings I bore about my stepfather. I started writing it in 1990 while living in Costa Mesa, California, just after finishing college. I was exploring my anger as well as my fascination with Nietzsche in a narrative imbued with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
I'd gotten a bit of interest in the book, but nothing happened until one day a young editor (Eric Wybenga) who'd read the manuscript as an assistant, decided it was ripe for publishing, especially since the success of St. Martin's other big Gen-X book, Coupland's Generation X. Wybenga called me, I took the offer, and thus I started on this haphazard literary career.
Synopsis: Riley O'Dunnough, recently graduated from Berkeley in Philosophy, decides, after a particular run-in, to kill his father, Patrick "Papa" O'Dunnough. But, being the intellectual that he is, he decides the murder must be accomplished as a measure of his intellect. While trying to figure out the best method for extermination, he falls in love with this crazy-sexy-Nietzsche-spouting woman, a woman who would change everything and push Riley further than he could ever imagine.
Buy it! Also, read the funny pans by my detractors. Hysterical!