Your new book is titled not Do Animals Grieve? or A Few Big-Brained Mammals Grieve Once in a While but How Animals Grieve.  How come?

I wanted to telegraph what we now understand: a wide variety of animals mourn when a loved one dies. Scientists have known for years about elephants who stroke the bones of the dead, and chimpanzees who become greatly distressed at the body of a loved one.  And very recently, we’ve learned from up-close observations new details about how these big-brained mammals and others, like dolphins, grieve in the wild.

Is it really true that you wrote this book while living in a storage unit?

I wrote the monologue in the storage unit – Life in a Marital Institution (20 Years of Monogamy in One Terrifying Hour). The book I wrote in a couple of different houses and apartments, after the lease on my storage unit ran out.

How does one end up writing in a storage unit?

I was living in a very expensive coop apartment in New York City, when I finally accepted the material limitation that to pursue my dream of writing autobiographical stories, I needed more time, and to have more time I needed to lower my expenses.

So, you have a new book coming out—could you tell us a little about that?

Sure, I have something else I’d like to talk about too, but yes, the book is called A Long Day at the End of the World, and it’s a personal narrative about the Tri-State Crematory Incident.  It’s a very gothic Southern story.  In 2002, it was discovered that a crematory operator in rural North Georgia had failed to cremate hundreds of bodies over a five year period.  He’d sent the families fake cremains, composed primarily of concrete dust, to cover his crime, and he’d left the rotting corpses strewn all over the crematory grounds.  Most of the bodies he’d dumped into eight mass burial pits, which were then covered with trash and, in one instance, an old pool table.  As it turns out, my father’s body was one of the first bodies abandoned at the site, in 1997.

Hi Michelle, what’s new? Do you hate that question?

Hate is a strong word, why are we talking about hate right off the bat?

Why indeed. So, how are you, what do you know for sure?

That’s my dad’s opener. What if we just did an entire interview of false starts? Where you open with something innocuous and then one or both of us becomes too self-conscious about it to continue?

So yesterday you went to St. Marks Bookshop in the East Village (of New York City) and signed a bunch of copies of your new memoir Poseur. How did that feel? You write very affectionately about discovering St. Marks Place and that very book store as a teen in the late 80s and feeling like you had something of your own in the City.   Something independent of your father’s City. And of feeling like Madonna in and her friends in Desperately Seeking Susan.

It’s true. I was telling this to another journalist last week actually.  That is probably the most important New York movie since Midnight Cowboy and Mean Streets and nobody really gives it credit they way they do say Stranger Than Paradise.  Which is also very important.  But Desperately Seeking Susan totally captures the attitude and style that made me want to move to the City and be one of those people too – before there was even a word for them.  I guess hipster was a word but you know what I mean.  Before I even knew what the word for them was.  Most people see it as “the one good Madonna movie,” but I know I’m not alone in thinking it’s got a lot more going on.  It was a freaking magnet.  So yes, it was cool to have a book of mine for sale in a store on St. Marks. Just off St. Marks if you want to get technical.

What was the last book that made you cry?

Mine.

So, why did you write a book about Green Day? Didn’t you already write a zine about Green Day when you were 15? 

Well, for most of my life I’ve been living in the shadow of this public and profound obsession with Green Day, which started around 1994/1995 (when I discovered their music and my self esteem suddenly transformed from being in a constant state of embarassment over my list of insecurities, to not really giving a shit). So I wrote this zine, Greenzine, around 1997, which started as real deal Green Day fanzine. It included fan contributions, lengthy descriptions on why their specific songs are so important and perfect, mini novellas about getting persecuted by fellow school mates over my love for Green Day, fan drawings, fan experiences (no fan fiction, that just wasn’t my bag, I’m a memoirist) <—(Thats a joke/L-word reference). But it is true, I did not participate in GD fan fiction. Anyway, the zine grew up, as I did, and being obsessed with Green Day suddenly wasn’t as interesting as flunking math, getting into awkward verbal debates about masturbation, questioning the government, falling in love with people, and other punk bands (It mostly became heavy on the pop-punk bands, the zine became full of interviews and record reviews).

 I can tell by the sound of your voice that you are famously handsome.

What?

Your voice—it sounds famously handsome.

To me it’s just nasal.

Fascinating. So, how was your recent sold out event at the New York Public Library with David Byrne?

Great! My head didn’t explode, which was a plus. There will be video of the event online soon. I’ll post it via one of my many online presences-es.

The title STORIES FOR BOYS carries all sorts of connotations and possible meanings.  So often, stories associated with or geared toward males include characters like Batman, James Bond, Robin Hood, King Arthur. These characters all exhibit stereotypical characteristics associated with the “ideal” male: strength, unemotional, straightforward, and super noble. But all of the boys (from the narrator to his father to his children) in this story, however, deal with complex emotions; in short, the book shows every kind of human weakness and explores emotional pain. How did you see yourself tackling such themes generally alienated from men, especially under the title STORIES FOR BOYS?

Masculinity, especially for boys, but also certainly for men, is so narrowly defined by our mainstream culture.  That notion, which is spelled out in your really good question, is in the air that all of us breathe.  I wanted this book to explore notions of masculinity—sometimes lightly, by poking fun at myself (as when I refer to Christine calling me by my superhero name, Mr. Incredible) but most often seriously, by attempting to capture the widest range of my actual emotions, from confusion to sadness, anger to grief, and all the shades in between.  It’s a terrible myth that to feel deeply, to grieve, to cry (Boys Don’t Cry) is a weakness, rather than a strength.  Obviously this is a cliché, however true, and so books and stories are necessary to explore how and why.  But there is certainly this notion that it’s better to be quiet or stoic or to supply an answer or a solution (however bad) than to only listen or acknowledge one’s mixed feelings and confusion and hurt.

‪Samantha: hi, you’re there?

Robin: Yep — hi, sweets

‪Samantha: hi. ready for a gchat self-interview?

‪

Your newest e-single, The Fire Horse, tells the story of an equestrian eventer, Boyd Martin, and his ornery, but talented horse, Neville Bardos, during a death-defying eventing season. You also have written a full-length book, Three Strides Before the Wire, about the jockey, Chris Antley, and his dramatic Triple Crown attempt on the horse, Charismatic. And yet, we hear you are not an equestrian yourself. What explains your interest in these horse-related stories?

I think you answered that question somewhat in the words you used about the stories — “death defying” and “dramatic.” Both true stories are intense examples of human beings grappling with the most challenging circumstances of life and figuring their way amidst the turmoils. I originally became intrigued by horse racing through my own challenging circumstances, described in Three Strides: My boyfriend had been granted a brief reprieve of health during a battle with leukemia, and we decided we should go to the Kentucky Derby as an adventure; it turned out to be the year that Antley rode Charismatic. My boyfriend and I had a joyous time at Churchill Downs, which remained an ecstatic memory through some of the more difficult, heartbreaking days that were yet to come.

You call your book “An Absorbing Errand.” How come?

Isn’t it a great title? I stole it from Henry James. But the concept is wonderful. One of James’s characters claims that the only way to have true happiness is to have an absorbing errand – something that takes you outside of yourself and keeps you there. I think James means that your life is made much better if you’re engaged in something purposeful – like an art form or serious craft –  that gives you a lens through which to approach the world. So, if you’re a wood worker, you have a reason to look closely at the work of all the other wood workers who came before you. You might decide you need to visit lots of houses, or workshops, or other countries, just to see different pieces of furniture. And you’ll need to learn about and acquire various tools, and you might have to take classes or apprentice yourself, and befriend other woodworkers. Before long, trees will have huge new meaning to you. You suddenly have a rich way to enjoy life. And more than that, you have a reason to engage the world – to go outside yourself.

1) Is this the first time you’ve ever interviewed yourself?

No, in fact, when I was growing up I interviewed myself constantly. I mean I pretended I was on Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin but they weren’t there. It was usually when I wanted to liven up a lengthy dishwashing session or tell Mike or Merv how mean my brothers were. I was like an early Rupert Pupkin.

That’s true. I am.

Why did you get married at fourteen?

Because no one proposed when I was twelve or thirteen. Seriously, my mother was emotionally abusive. She’d also been physically abusive until I was ten, and I wanted to get away from her. She was not a bad person or a crazy person, and I don’t believe she was fully aware either of what she was doing or of how it was affecting me, but by the time I reached adolescence, I found it unacceptable to continue living with her, and I thought I could get away from her and make my life right by falling in love and getting married. Of course, I ended up in another troubled, problematic situation from which I also had to escape.