Jason McCracken

“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

“I don’t blame anyone for getting addicted to their smartphones.

I only blame people for their terrible attempts at reviewing my work.

Vonnegut, Vonnegut, Vonnegut!

He invented the short sentence!

He invented the short paragraph!

He invented jokes!”
― Jarett Kobek, Only Americans Burn in Hell

“They would fail. We would always fail. We weren’t built to do anything but fail. We had the wrong kind of motives and we couldn’t change them. We had a built-in short-sightedness and an inherent selfishness and a self-concern that made it impossible to step out of the little human rut we traveled…”
― Clifford D. Simak, All Flesh is Grass

“There is a curious lacuna in Abigail, and one that is never revealed through the stylized vocals of King Diamond,” said HRH to Celia. “Speak not of the ludicrous sequel. We are not barbarians, madame. We consider texts unburdened by a priori knowledge. As King Diamond sings, we meet the ghost of Count de LaFey, and also his unfaithful wife, and their descendant Jonathan and his wife Miriam. One almost need not even mention Abigail herself. The stillborn child of de LaFey’s wife, conceived in the sullen pits of adultery. Although the main thrust of the album concerns itself with Abigail’s attempts to possess Miriam, represented as the symbolic transition from eighteen to nine, I remain struck by our ignorance of Abigail’s father. Her sire is the one player never identified. I wonder, madame, have you any theories as to the identity of this unfortunate progenitor?”
― Jarett Kobek, Only Americans Burn in Hell