To this end, we have chosen the most memorable and illuminating exchanges between Mr. Krauser and another person named John Hodgman. Their letters, now kept in a special box in a library, comprise a life-long conversation on the subjects of art, life, love, and lemons. Let us listen to their words, whispering across the decades. - - - - Mr. Hodgman: I must know about this Lemon. Tell me, Mr. Krauser: do we say The Lemon, or just Lemon? Mr. Krauser: I guess it wouldn't be silly to say The Lemon, as that was its title when it was originally excerpted in the second issue of McSweeney's (Blues-Jazz Odyssey). On the book it says only Lemon. Call it whatever you want, John, I trust you. Mr. H: Your publisher describes Lemon as "a beautifully written book. It is about a man, Wendell, who loses his love, Marge, and who subsequently finds obsession, in the shape of a small yellow fruit." Now, what I want to know is this: is that fruit, by any chance, a lemon? Mr. K: No! Oh, wait. Did you say "lemon"? It's possible that there's a running typo due to a last-minute Search & Replace. I think I meant "melon." I'll check my notes. As for the rest of the book, I really can't recall much. Who's "Marge"? Mr. H: The publisher also says this: "The book is profoundly romantic and also very funny. Everyone will love it." True? Mr. K: My publisher is given to quite the merry rhetoric. As there seems often to be a shot of sharpshootery in his pronouncements, I'll knock on wood. But who knows? I'm no psychic. Mr. H: I think your psychic powers are quite well documented, but out of friendship, I will not press the issue. Meanwhile, I have heard tell of a scheme you have to hand-decorate the cover of each of no less than 10,000 copies of Lemon. How is this being done? Mr. K: My right hand is doing it with a pen directly on the book jacket. There's a blank panel there for that purpose. 10,000 is the correct figure. I have 3,000 loose jackets in my office at Doubleday Books, where I am a copy editor. The other 7,000 undrawn covers have already been placed on books by Oddi, the Icelandic printer of McSweeney's, and they've just arrived in the States. I have to go to Chicago soon to draw on those. Mr. H: How can a man, who is after all, only human, do such a thing? Mr. K: You assume I'm human, you flatterer. My species is my private business, but regardless, I'm also a compulsive doodler—quite convenient to this enterprise. The simpler the drawing, the faster it goes, and usually the better as well. So the course is clear: simplicity. I try to do 100 jackets on a school night and more on weekends. I carry them around. I do them everywhere, subway, parks, bars. It's a great way to meet new people and get my ass kicked. Mr. H: What materials are you using? Mr. K: At first, I thought that I'd use just one pen: the Itoya Doubleheader, a great chisel-edged marker with a beautiful varying-width line. But then I dropped some covers in a puddle and discovered that this pen's ink is water-soluble. Now I'm using pretty much whatever's at hand. Mr. H: Who is the man they call "Krauser?" Mr. K: Why? Mr. H: I ask because your readers will want to know. In my professional experience, the work counts for nothing unless you are single and handsome. Are you single? Mr. K: Probably the impulse behind the writing of a book is belief in, or symptom of the search for, one's singularity, don't you think? Mr. H: Are you handsome? Mr. K: I'm married to the painter of the painting on the back cover of THE Lemon, as you insist on calling it. My grandma says I'm handsome when I comb my hair. Mr. H: Let's try another approach. Are you gruesomely deformed? Mr. K: I think so. Keep meaning to ask my doctor. I would say, depending on what you're comparing me to, yes or no. Mr. H: Do you live in a bell tower? Mr. K: I have a digital alarm clock, thank you. Mr. H: There is something called the "creative process" which writers are always talking about. Chiefly it seems to revolve around these two variables: when does one write? and what does one wear while doing so? Mr. K: I adhere to vampire hours to the extent my 9-to-5 job allows. When not being paid, I find clothes too distracting to actually wear. Now that Lemon's being published, if anybody buys it I may have to investigate cotton garments. I hear they're relatively comfortable. Mr. H: That's very interesting. In certain areas of paranormal research, there has been postulated the existence of "psychic vampires"—which is to say, vampires who do not suck blood but instead drain life-sustaining energy from the aura of their victims. Would you say that you are that kind of vampire? Mr. K: I did NOT say I am a vampire. I DID say I'm not psychic. Mr. H: Do you ever take a break and have a snack? Mr. K: Lemon was written at the average rate of one sentence per day. Writing is the break I take from eating. Mr. H: What is your favorite snack? Mr. K: "Snack" is a derogatory term for meals that are not big or conventionally timed. "Snack" means nothing and says nothing and I do not eat "snacks," much less have a favorite. Mr. H: What are you doing right now? Mr. K: Got some trail-mix here that's pretty good. Mr. H: What is this Printer's Devil Theater I'm hearing so much about? Mr. K: An excellent theatre in Seattle that has given the benefit of the doubt to most of my scripts, and Paul Willis directed a great production of my play "Horrible Child" there in 1998. Right now they're going through a classics phase, Chekhov & Ibsen, et al., but I have high hopes they'll soon return to untested heresy. Mr. H: So you are a playwright in addition to being a novelist. What is a "Printer's Devil" and what does it have to do with your vampirism? Mr. K: Christ, Mr. Hodgman! (There—a vampire would never curse thusly.) A printer's devil's this little spirit-bugger that lurks in printing presses and messes up books with typos and upside-down text, etc. Probably for practical reasons they stay up late like vampires and like myself, but as far as I know we're three distinct types of entity. I've met many printer's devils, or at least come across their leavings, but have never to my knowledge met a vampire, especially not in the mirror, though I suppose if I were one I wouldn't meet myself there, right? Listen, just because I know a couple things about vampires doesn't mean I am one. Mr. H: Fine. Do you play the trumpet? Mr. K: Hey! Do I ask you where you put your lips? Really, Mr. Hodgman. Mr. H: Answer the question: were you ever trained in the playing of a trumpet? Mr. K: I did not receive training on that instrument! Mr. H: Of a piano? Mr. K: I have no recollection. Mr. H: Are you not, in fact, a trained musician in addition to being a writer? Mr. K: I object to this melodic line of questioning! Mr. H: All the same, it is documented that you drove to Boston on less than a day's notice to play the electric piano at Neal Pollack's reading there. What I want to know is this: who were those two guys who came with you and played bass and drums respectively? Mr. K: Ted Schreiber, the bass player, I played with for a few years in the popfunk band Life Out of Balance, which still exists. He grooves great and also writes the news for Fox and NBC sometimes. Dave Engelhardt, on drums, is sort of a superhero-type of new-daddy dude who runs a software design company and collaborated with me on recording the song "Perfect Machine," which I submitted for the McSweeney's #6 CD. Mr. H: It is traditional for an author to appear in various bookstores and other venues and read from his work to celebrate its publication. Will Mssrs. Schreiber and Engelhardt join you on your book tour? Mr. K: One's out of state and the other's cell phone's battery is dead, but we'll see. I also have all these other musician friends who, when they get together and play, if I'm on stage with them, it appears that I too can play. So maybe there will be music and illusion on my tour. Mr. H: Will you accompany yourself on piano as you read from Lemon? Mr. K: Vice-versa, maybe. Mr. H: Perhaps while wearing a dinner jacket? Mr. K: Snack shoes. Mr. H: For heaven's sake, what are your plans? Time is running out! Mr. K: I'll tour, I'll tour! In January. Music yes. In cities where I know theatre people we'll do dramatic readings of the book with actors. Where there are musicians there may indeed be music. Where there are vampires there will be blood. Mr. H: Tell, Mr. Krauser, are you by any chance psychic? K: I am no more psychic than I was a few paragraphs ago—thought you'd catch me off-guard?—but I will say this: Two months ago a friend told me she'd seen my doppelganger at some club, he was playing mandolin with a band. Then last night at a party a woman I did not recognize greeted me with "Olivier! Olivier!" I said hello in turn, for there have been people who have found the name "Lawrence" to be embarrassingly formal and so have jokingly called me "Olivier." So I am accustomed to responding to the name, despite the fact that I intensely dislike Olivier's film version of "Hamlet," though I'm sure he was much more convincing on the stage. "Olivier!" she exclaimed again, "Olivier, you've grown your hair!" That was when I realized she indeed thought I was someone she knew whose name actually is Olivier. I quickly set her straight, then asked: "Does Olivier by any chance play mandolin?" And she said "Yes!" Which led to a whole other discussion. Mr. H: You are so totally psychic.
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