Fictionaut Five: Mark Sarvas

Library Journal says it all:

[Mark] Sarvas, writer of the highly praised literary blog, The Elegant Variation, has written a brilliantly funny and heart-wrenching first novel about one man’s struggle to face the truth. … Harry Rent is of the same ilk as Walter Mitty and Rabbit Angstrom: deeply flawed, likable, and hilariously, touchingly memorable.

The paperback edition of Harry, Revised is now available. Here are Mark’s answers to the set of questions we call the Fictionaut Five:

If you weren’t a writer, how would you spend your time?

I’d love to be a chessplayer. Or a professional cyclist. Or a busboy at the French Laundry.

Which book do you wish you’d written?

A better version of my own. Otherwise, The Great Gatsby, Netherland or Athena.

What are the websites you couldn’t live without?

Maud Newton, The Millions, The Literary Saloon, Andrew Sullivan, TPM.

What are you working on now?

I’m hard at work on my second novel. All I want to say right now is that it has to do with looted World War II art, and fathers, sons and grandfathers.

Do you listen to music while you write? What?

Always. I can’t write in silence, it’s sort of weird. For writing, it’s almost exclusively jazz or classical. Things like Bach’s cello suites, or Keith Jarrett’s solo piano. Music with lyrics disrupts the flow.