Your “The Time Has Come” FAQ

My novel is out May 16. Here’s what you need to know.

Buy my novel The Time Has Come right here.

I am such a sucker for the Frequently Asked Questions article format that Daniel, the main character of my book How Lucky, early on in the book stops the narrative dead in its tracks, grants the reader temporary sentience and busts into an FAQ about his disability. I find the format not just entertaining to read, but a perfect conduit to providing reliable information in a fun way — flexible enough to wander afield when desired and sturdy enough to provide a reliable foundation when it’s time to return.

One of my favorite moments in a book ever is when, in Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, he begins a chapter with what seems to be a question-and-answer session with a producer of the ’90s reality show “The Real World” that slowly dissolves into howls of grief and pain as he confronts his memory of seeing his mother in the casket at her funeral and you realize that this is not in fact an interview at all. I remember interviewing Michael Schur for New York right before “Parks and Recreation” came out and asking him why he was sticking with the “mockumentary” format he had used for “The Office.” “It’s just familiar and banal enough that you can play with it however you want it and it will always snap back into place,” he said. “The audience will go anywhere with you because you’re talking directly to them. I think it’s the best way to tell a story on television.” I feel this way about the FAQ. It’s a format that makes you feel like you’re an active participant in what you’re reading, even though you’re not.

This coming Tuesday, it will be five weeks until my new novel The Time Has Come is unleashed on an unsuspecting public. The release date is May 16. So I thought, here at Medium, I might do an FAQ about the book. I will hopefully cover everything you might (or might not) want to know about the book, and when I am done, I hope that you will buy it.

So: Your The Time Has Come FAQ.

Hello.

Hi.

Thank you for giving me life. It is cold in the void.

You are welcome. I’m worried this gift is already beginning to feel like more of…