2007 afterword

tommorrow morning i have to get up at 8 am to help the nuns move seats into the new theater...on monday, i have an english search committee meeting in the morning and a handbook revision meeting in the afternoon...i have short hair and am in bed most nights by 9 pm...are you surprised?...i am smart, ya know...i have good parents and the scorpio (that was meant for me) is close and i believe...and 10 years removed from starting fat on the vine, i still think it's stunning...debauchery and self-hatred fill every page and it reads like one long, bloody scream...i like to think of the crazycarl that wrote it as my alter ego---and if we ever met, i don't think you'd ever believe that the narrator was actually me...this is how i felt in 1997 though and i don't wanna hide from what i was or am...it's possible to grow and it's possible to heal...i’ve written two other (unpublished) novels, “dead in the head” and “my parents’ medicine,” but in many ways, both are chasing the blood-reality of fat on the vine...i don’t think they’re quite as good because ugliness can’t ever really be substituted for heart…as for my 2007 edit: there are certainly grammar mistakes that i didn’t catch….the dude who wrote this didn’t give a shit when he was filling the pages with his own assblood and i can’t say that the dude who edited it really tried that hard either…as for my writing style (the punctuation and the ellipses): if you had asked me in 1997, i would have said it was designed to “fight the power”…if you ask me today, i would simply respond that it’s how i write...i wasn’t gonna be in oprah’s bookclub then and i’m not gonna be in oprah’s bookclub now…if you want some new age philosophy before i go: it’s ok to be yourself….it’s ok to let your freak flag fly and it’s ok to bushwhack up the mountain the wrong way...i still don’t get laid that often, but that’s ok too...the nuns still like me as do my students, dogs, lesbians, fat kids, drug addicts and a who’s who list of assorted freaks...there’s power to be gained and connections to be made even if your drug dealer thinks you’re a pussy...

ABOUT THE BOOK

Fat on the Vine tells the story of "lil bigsexy," an overweight, 28-year-old virgin and drug addict. Robinson's antihero is torn between the two women in his life: his born-again Christian mother and Julie, the hard-partying lesbian to whom lil bigsexy eventually loses his virginity. The author's unique writing style is reflected in a protagonist who is pushed to the brink of insanity by drugs, self-hatred, and obsession. Robinson writes without social filter or shame and his novel is as disturbing as it is beautiful.