A Mess o Weird

I came across a strange book at the library on Saturday written by three strange people-Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert. The book is called Wigfield and appears to be almost purposefully unmarketable-it's a fictional account of a huckster "writer" trying to come up with 50,000 words about a small interstate strip town called Wigfield. Published in 2003, this book came out when Stephen Colbert was still just a reporter on The Daily Show but after Amy Sedaris' amazing Strangers With Candy. The middle guy, Paul Dinello, collaborated with Sedaris on Strangers and came through Second City in Chicago with both Colbert and Sedaris. As it reads on the dust jacket, "they all currently reside together on an organic date farm on the Tunisian coast." Also, the cover of this book is butt ugly.

Some of my favorite lines so far:

"I stare at my stack of books, my past works, conquests that now mock me like ungrateful children. Shut up! Shut your mouths! I created you! I grab my head in torment."

"My book would be written from the heart, probably my own."

"I needed an angle for my book, but all I had was anger."

"The Lord, like every woman I had known, was cold and distant."

"Every small town has its shortcomings. Some small towns have a problem with the kids running off to the big city, other small towns might have worries about a drought affecting the crops, one of ours just happens to be a mindless killing machine who feeds on our fear."