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Christopher Noxon

Goodreads Author

Born

Los Angeles, CA, The United States

Website

http://www.christophernoxon.com

Twitter

cnoxon

Genre

Fiction, Nonfiction, Illustrated, Literature & Fiction

Influences

Nick Hornby, Jonathan Tropper, Jennifer Weiner, Meg Wolitzer, Danny Gr ...more

Member Since

December 2008

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Christopher Noxon is an author, journalist and illustrator.

He’s the author of the novel Plus One, which “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner called “well-observed, honest, and laugh-out-loud funny” and Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown Up, which Ira Glass, host of public radio’s This American Life, called “an eye opener.” The book was featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, CNN’s “In the Money,” NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

As a journalist, he has written for The New Yorker, Details, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, and Salon. He began his career in newspapers, working as an editor, enterprise reporter and arts ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

What are you currently working on?

Christopher Noxon I’m writing a pilot for ABC based on the book which is weird and fun and may or may not result in an actual TV show. Meanwhile I’ve started work on an…moreI’m writing a pilot for ABC based on the book which is weird and fun and may or may not result in an actual TV show. Meanwhile I’ve started work on another book about another family; this one is told through the viewpoints of multiple characters, one of whom is a 12-year-old foster kid named Milo. I’m excited about using more drawing and art in narrative and moving further afield from my own experience. The new book is still set in LA though. And there’s a 50-year-old guy who may or may not be a projection of myself (or Alex) in some imagined and not-terribly-complimentary future. In the end I can’t seem to escape myself.(less)

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How do you get inspired to write?

Christopher Noxon I carry around a notebook and jot down ideas as they come. But in general, I don't wait for inspiration. With three school-age kids and a wife who oft…moreI carry around a notebook and jot down ideas as they come. But in general, I don't wait for inspiration. With three school-age kids and a wife who often works long hours, I’m a between-dropoff-and-pickup writer, starting at 8:30 and finishing before 2 for bus pickup. I write all over LA, in coffee shops and restaurants and libraries – anywhere but home (where I’m often interrupted by dogs, deliveries or the telephone). I love the ornate Mediterranean reading rooms at the Pasadena Central Library and the sunny modern stacks at the West Hollywood Library and have even written sitting on park benches and in my car while waiting for pickup at school.

My last book was Rejuvenile, a heavily-researched, quasi-sociological survey of adulthood that asked why grown-ups today act so much more like kids than adults of previous generations. When I set out to write a novel, I figured, how different can it be?

Answer: entirely. I may as well have been a cobbler for all the necessary skills I had to write a novel.

That’s not entirely true. To write anything long and lasting you need to first of all keep your butt in the chair and ignore the Internet and your phone and the insistent never-ending desire to right now at this very moment get up and eat a cookie. I learned how to do that writing my first book (notwithstanding the many Mint Milanos).

Everything else about the process was new. The big difference, one that took way too long to recognize but which landed like lightening when I finally did, was the importance of emotion. I had initially outlined Plus One as a series of events – this thing happens, which leads to this thing happening, which eventually leads to a big climax. Only after a few months of churning out surface-y, limp, mostly lifeless prose did I realize that the fiction I love most isn’t built around plot. What happens in the story matters, but what gives it life and energy and propulsion is how people feel. It wasn’t enough for me to outline a series of what TV writers call story beats – I had to dig deeply into how my characters felt and allow those emotions to drive what they did and how they behaved. I had to replace storybeats with what I now –embarrassingly – call emobeats (cue the violins!).

In the end, the process of writing fiction called on more of me – my head, heart, guts – than anything I've done before. Writing a novel is part meditation, part performance, part puzzle. Now that I’ve written one I’m just as excited – and intimidated – by the form as ever.(less)

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Combine Editions
Christopher Noxon’s books

Average rating: 3.99 · 2,356 ratings · 394 reviews · 7 distinct works • Similar authors

	Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted by Daniel Sokatch, Christopher Noxon (Goodreads Author) (Illustrator) 4.33 avg rating — 1,829 ratings — published 2021 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Plus One 3.23 avg rating — 489 ratings — published 2014 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up 3.34 avg rating — 234 ratings — published 2006 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook 4.29 avg rating — 163 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Becoming Jewish and Leadership (Sh'ma Journal: Independent Thinking on Contemporary Judaism Book 43) by Scott McGrath, Lior Bar-Am1, Rachel Cowan it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rejuvenile FIRST EDITION FIRST PRINT 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Plus One by Christopher Noxon (2015-01-20) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Christopher Noxon (?)

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”
― Christopher Noxon, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup

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“Rejuveniles can be moral, political, religious, and also frivolous, impractical, and off-the-charts silly.”
― Christopher Noxon, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup

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“We’re freer now, less encumbered by plans, more overwhelmed by the range of available choices, each of us enacting that wonderful line from Bob Dylan: “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
― Christopher Noxon, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup

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