Jason McCracken

“Most of the comparisons between this book and the writings of the late Kurt Vonnegut will occur in cheap little reviews on Goodreads.com and Amazon.com, which are Internet websites owned by a guy named Jeff Bezos.

These websites are where the American readership makes sure that American authors know their fucking place, and further ensures American authors know that their place is the equivalent to that of a moon-faced kid being shoved into some mud by a bully.”
― Jarett Kobek, Only Americans Burn in Hell

“I can think of one reason why I can’t escape comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut.

And it ain’t because my work is so indebted to his own.

It’s because Vonnegut was the same as me: another con artist ripping off the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

A bunch of people have talked shit about Céline.

I don’t blame them!

Besides being one of the best writers of the Twentieth Century AD, he was also a rabid anti-Semite who collaborated with the Nazis.

But I can’t judge!

I too have collaborated with Nazis!

I was published by Penguin Random House!”
― Jarett Kobek, Only Americans Burn in Hell

“In the same month that Corey extended his invitation for food or caffeine, a major American publisher issued my follow-up to I Hate the Internet. It was a novel that ended up with the title The Future Won’t Be Long.

It was a massive commercial failure.

Less than 300 copies sold in its first six months!

I Hate the Internet sold 300 copies in its first two weeks!

Reader, this was shocking.

If for no other reason than the simple fact that The Future Won’t Be Long was published by Penguin Random House.

Penguin Random House is the biggest publishing conglomerate in the world. It’s a multibillion-dollar multinational corporation owned by another multibillion-dollar multinational corporation called Bertelsmann, which spent much of World War Two producing Nazi propaganda and using Jewish slaves to work in its factories.

My book was backed by Nazi money!

And it still failed!”
― Jarett Kobek, Only Americans Burn in Hell

“It had happened again. He had made everyone laugh by doing something silly, but he didn't know what it was, why it was so funny. His father would have said he ought to be a "wakeup," whatever that meant, but he hadn't been a wakeup, he had happily eaten a sausage sandwich that hadn't been a sausage sandwich. A piece of shit, they said it was, but how could he know what a piece of shit tasted like, when he had never eaten it before? What was so funny? He wished he knew; he hungered to know, to share in their laughter and understand. That was always the greatest sorrow, that he could never seem to understand.

His wide blue eyes filled with tears, his face twisted up in anguish and he began to cry like a small child, bellowing noisily, still wringing his hands together and shrinking away from them.”
― Colleen McCullough, Tim