Gambit Weekly (New Orleans): “Ramped Up,” Nov. 9, 2004, By Todd A. Price

Hank Stuever arrived at Loyola University in 1986 with a suitcase full of Smiths and Cure albums and the secret desire to be a vampire. Four years later, after spending more time at the student newspaper than in the classroom, he left New Orleans an accomplished writer with a keen eye for the absurd. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, the former reporter for The Maroon, Loyola's campus paper now writes offbeat features and a weekly column for The Washington Post.

Stuever created his own beat, a place he calls the "American Elsewhere." Lingering at strip malls, discount waterbed stores and self-storage centers, Stuever found humor and pathos where others saw suburban blandness. Off Ramp (Henry Holt) collects some of the stories that Stuever has written since he left the staff of The Maroon. In the book, he charts the tragic demise of K-Mart, the down-on-its-luck discount store that "has lipstick on its teeth and those days where it feels, you know not so fresh?" Pitching a tent at a KOA campground in Albuquerque, N.M., Stuever meets the "Decent People, trusting but wary travelers who don't want no surprises." In the aftermath of 9/11, he rushed to Atlantic City, N.J., to see if the Miss America pageant would go on. Stuever reports that 11 days after the terrorist attacks "blonder heads prevailed" and 51 beauties donned ball gowns and bathing suites to comfort a grieving nation.

Stuever's writing is often compared to David Sedaris because they both share a love of the absurd and a cheeky gay sensibility. Stuever may freely offer his own sarcastic opinions, but at heart he's a journalist more interested in the lives of others than sharing tales from his life. He relishes the humor in the subjects he covers, but the longing and heartbreak he discovers in ordinary moments give depth to his writing. "I think too much and too sadly about the everyday things," he says.

Stuever says that while at Loyola, he learned "the journalistic value of catching some hell." Encouraged by The Maroon's advisor, a Jesuit priest and writer named Ray Schroth, he covered stories that many people at Loyola preferred to ignore. "Some of the fraternities lagged behind terribly when it came to integration and still had some racist bylaws in their charters," Stuever recalls. The Maroon staff, he says, was often harassed on campus for its reporting. "I do think New Orleans -- even a microcosm of the city contained within Loyola, or Uptown -- is a difficult place to truth-tell. Journalism has a way of seeming like especially bad manners in New Orleans culture."

For a kid from Oklahoma City who has built a career chronicling the type of suburban sprawl he knew from his youth, Stuever chose what seems like an unlikely detour in New Orleans. "By being immersed in Uptown and the Garden District for four years, I did unlearn, somewhat, the contours and lifestyles of my tract-house upbringing," Stuever says. "There are about five or six cities in America that transact entirely on an authentic self-image and aesthetics -- New Orleans is one. There is no mistaking where you are, even if you're in a chain store in the Quarter."

Still, Stuever wishes writers who work in New Orleans would resist the temptation of falling into what he calls cliche New Orleans themes; he wishes writers would expose a different side of the city. "I would love to read a Metairie-based novel about a character who eats mainly at Applebee's," he says. "I would love to listen to that interior dialogue. Really, I would."

Even in New Orleans, Stuever was drawn to stories of pop culture gone awry, like a 1987 performance of "Sesame Street Live" at the Kiefer UNO Lakefront Arena. "It was like Lollapalooza for 3-year-olds," Stuever says. "Backstage, the cast members were sort of hyped up and profane, so Cookie Monster takes off his head and starts bitching about missed cues, and so on. Here is a subject college students at Loyola probably had no interest whatsoever in reading, so, naturally, I wrote a couple thousand words about it for The Maroon." Since graduating from Loyola, Stuever has made it back to New Orleans only twice. "That's not enough," he admits. "Do I want to go to Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest and eat crawfish? Not really. Would I love to blow off this afternoon in Audubon Park, on a blanket, reading a great book, and then dawdle on my way home up Magazine Street? Absolutely." He stays in touch with the city by listening to Internet broadcasts of WTUL, Tulane's campus station. "Just the sound of WTUL with one of their DJs reading public-service announcements with a head cold, puts me right back in New Orleans," Stuever said. "I once called over to WTUL from the Loyola Maroon office and asked the DJ to please blow her nose before the next break."
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Poets & Writers magazine web site: "Hank Stuever on Soccer Moms, NASCAR fans and the American Elsewhere," By Michael Depp, "Direct Quotes" (web site only), September 2004

For the past 14 years, Hank Stuever, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, has published his unique brand of creative nonfiction in the form of newspaper articles in the Albuquerque Tribune, Austin American-Statesman, and the Washington Post. The subjects of his articles—-haunted waterbed stores, plastic lawn chairs, beauty pageants, and discount funeral homes among them—-hardly seem fodder for probing essays on the American psyche. But what might fall into the realm of light comedy for many writers takes on a lyrical profundity in Stuever's work.
In July, a collection of his essays, Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere, was published by Henry Holt.

The Washington Blade: "The long road to 'Elsewhere": Gay Washington Post writer Hank Stuever has published his first book - a look at quirky and offbeat parts of America" By Brian Moylan, July 9, 2004

HANK STUEVER, A staff writer for the Washington Post"s Style section, is parked in a McDonald"s parking lot somewhere in Missouri, talking on his cell phone. Due to a cancelled flight on his way to visit his mother, he was forced to spend a night at a hotel in Independence.

"At the front desk, I had to wait because there were three dripping wet women in bathing suits complaining about a pervert in the swimming pool," he says. "I was like, 'I"m so staying here." What a great place to talk about my book. It"s so 'Elsewhere.""
Stuever (rhymes with "mover" )recently published his first book, "Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere," a collection of his stories that first appeared in the Post and other newspapers. He is scheduled on Friday, July 16, to read excerpts from it at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW.

The world of "Elsewhere" is a Stuever creation, places he frequently occupies and reports from for his stories. In the book"s introduction, he describes Elsewhere as, "the optimistically named suburbs that were already fading, the drive-thrus, the multiplexes, the strip, the drag, the freeway spans under construction, the futon places, the yogurt places, the 10-minute lube places, the Slurpees, the billboards offering open-sided MRI scans."

In his dispatch titled "Service Is Needed in Layaway," he writes: "Unlike its competitors, a true Kmart is unashamed to be a Kmart. It has lipstick on its teeth and those days where it feels, you know, not so fresh? It smells of popcorn, new bicycle tires, a package of crew socks, and home perm kits. You should be hesitant to go in there, and then you go in anyhow, because sometimes you feel like being a Kmart person."

Stuever"s dispatches from Elsewhere are usually read one story at a time, but when the essays are compiled in the book, their impact is more powerful.

"When you put it together a certain way, it"s about America," he says. "To me it"s this big tornado, and it hits a Wal-Mart and then the TVs in the Wal-Mart are swirling around in the tornado, but they are still on."

Those televisions reflect footage of everything from TLC"s makeover show "Trading Spaces," and the importance of Wonder Woman as a gay and cultural icon to a waterbed store on Route 1in College Park, Md., and camping at the Kampgrounds of America in New Mexico.

THERE IS AN EVER-GROWING roster of gay humor essayists, such as David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs and Dan Savage, (the latter two wrote blurbs for "Off-Ramp"s" book jacket). And now, Stuever.

"Just as some gay men are drawn to do Cher, there are gay men who are drawn to write the classic essays of our time," he says. "I think a lot of gay men who are writers, if they did drag, they"d be [famed reporter and essayist] Joan Didion. That whole 1974 vibe — wind-swept hair, stepping off a plane, weighing 90 pounds and writing about Nancy Reagan." That said, unlike the other essayists, Stuever must adhere to Post policies and standards. He notes that, unlike Burroughs, he can"t write a story about having oral sex in a funeral home.

Stuever"s essays are often personal and use the pronoun "I," something that is usually frowned upon in the world of journalism. "It"s 'I" the narrator who saw these things and wrote this story," he says. "This 'I" is like your guide. Instead of 'I" with all these hang-ups and all this baggage."

Still, Stuever occasionally mentions that he"s a gay man, but even when he doesn"t his writing has that elusive "gay sensibility." "I think there"s a lot of gay in these stories without it ever being about homosexuality," he says, later adding that growing up gay in Oklahoma City, in some ways, drove him to discover Elsewhere.

"As a gay boy twirling around in the backyard trying to be Wonder Woman, it was quickly suggested to me, in my culture, that that is not how little boys act," he says. "My way to deal with that is to become a good observer of what is and isn"t an approved lifestyle for everyone. That"s how I became attuned to what everyone was saying and doing, because I wanted to see what was proper."
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Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "Author Stuever finds humor everywhere" By Cary Darling, July 19, 2004
If some travelers are happiest luxuriating in five-star comfort and others prefer keepin' it real in no-star hostels and fleabags, writer Hank Stuever opts for something in that vast consumerist middle. Something with a pool, a sliding-glass door and a noisy ice machine down the hall.

So when he calls from somewhere in the wilds of Missouri -- having gotten lost on his way to a family reunion near Lake of the Ozarks -- he's in a cheery mood.

"I checked into a Quality Inn and was immediately delighted," he says with a laugh. "There's one guy working here, and three women, all dripping wet, were registering a complaint about someone threatening them at the pool. It's American paradise. I had reakfast at Sonic. I found Kinko's to check my e-mail. I got my Diet Pepsi."

On this morning, he is thrilled to discover an unlocked sliding-glass door in his room. "I could have been murdered. It would have been perfect," he continues. "I couldn't have woken up in a better place."

Of course, Stuever fans won't be surprised by any of this. As the chronicler of modern times and culture for The Washington Post since 1999, Stuever, 35, has developed a reputation for homing in on the fine and often funny details of this American life.

Richard Hatch. California recall. Plastic chairs. Wonder Woman. They all come together in Stuever's world -- and they're collected in a hardcover compilation of 26 columns, Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere (Henry Holt, $24).

"My mom used to take us out to watch tornadoes," Stuever says, recalling his childhood in Oklahoma City. "We never saw a good one, but I really love watching everything get swept up into one big picture, and that's what this book is. Happy, sad, bizarre, normal, abnormal, America is really mixed up."

What Stuever is best at is using the small strokes of the daily grind to paint that big picture. Oceans of words were spilled in the wake of 9-11, but Stuever's Nine-ish, about why 9 a.m. -- roughly the time of the Oklahoma City and 9-11 attacks -- has become our saddest hour, still resonates with its sense of knowing intimacy: "The people who would kill ordinary Americans in order to make a point have zeroed in on the humdrum of our early midmornings, with the idea that we're all up and at our desks doing . . . doing what, exactly? . . . Nine o'clock? You're likely to be where you're supposed to be, only not quite -- the atrium lobby, or that little croissant place across the plaza, or in the elevator, or aboard the early shuttle flight. You are two floors down, or one floor up, perhaps not exactly where your loved ones thought you'd be, which either saves your life or seals your fate."

Stuever sort of stumbled into his position as a cultural observer, first at The Albuquerque Tribune and at the Austin American-Statesman in the '90s. Yeah, he knew he was a good writer, having been a high-school newspaper editor and a journalism student at Loyola University in New Orleans. But originally he wanted to be a graphic artist. Then he ended up in hard news but discovered, to the chagrin of some of his editors, that he was less interested in the obvious specifics of crime and cops.

"Where I was doing my best work was in this sort of great nondescript other America," he says. "We're in an election year, with red and blue states, and some would say right now I'm driving through bright red. But I'm terrible about writing about places in black and white or red and blue. The better story was in the marginalia."

Barbara Page, a copy editor at The Albuquerque Tribune, says "Hank always had an interesting way of finding something in the commonplace. . . . He went out with a seasoned reporter on a fire, and the reporter came back puzzled because Hank just stood there and watched the fire, and no one had done that before."

Yet, even though Stuever often is compared with humorist David Sedaris, who also finds magic in the mundane, Stuever rarely writes about himself. Readers are intimately familiar with Sedaris' familial dysfunction. But they wouldn't necessarily know from perusing Stuever's work that he was raised Catholic, is one of four kids, has parents who were married for 29 years before divorcing and has seen his mother become a nun.

"Yes, my mom being a nun really is a strange second act for our whole family," he reflects. "But it's also her life. The thing about Sedaris is how he got his family on board in writing about them. But if I was going to write about my family, I'm afraid I'd be so journalistic about them and my mom would say, 'I never said that,' so it wouldn't stand up to fact-checking."

Sometimes his private life does become part of the story. Some members of the gay community were upset that, as a gay man, Stuever would write a Post column calling Richard Hatch, the scheming and openly gay winner of the first Survivor, an "Evil Queen."

"Richard was and perhaps still is an Evil Queen, and that is why viewers were drawn to him," he wrote. "His homosexuality was rendered nearly irrelevant on the social microcosm of Survivor, but in his twisted way, Richard did more for gays than a thousand Wills, with their attendant Graces, could ever do."

"It shakes down to old gay and new gay," Stuever says now. "The old gays were upset and think if you're going to put gay in the paper, you have to do it in a really serious way. [But] I'm gay on just about everything I write about. I think you can hear it in the language of the story. New gays get it. Old gays get the air blown up their skirts really easily about anything sort of sassy. In the last two or three years, with Queer Eye, that's all out the window."

Back in Albuquerque, he upset a local bride and groom when his detailed story about the day-to-day turmoil leading up to their wedding turned out to be a little too personal for their tastes. Today, he doesn't think that story, or his style, would cause a ripple.

"We didn't have access into people's lives then," he says. "People would know now, 'It's like a reality-TV show. I get it.' "
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The Herald, Bellingham, Wash.: "Fables of our foibles: Washington Post writer tells his tales," By Margaret Bikman, July 22, 2004
Hank Stuever, Washington Post staff writer, has published a collection of his favorite pieces, including ruminations on the stacking plastic chairs, the habits of campers and stuff people keep in self-storage units.

Q: What do you write about at The Washington Post?
A: I'm a general features writer and essayist for the Style section, which covers almost anything - politics, trends, culture (high and low), fashion, objects, the weird, the normal, the fully alive and the very dead. I usually pitch story ideas on things that are so obvious no one thought to do it yet - the history of plastic patio chairs - or so marginal to the news at the moment that no one thought to do it yet - the meaning of the Miss America pageant held 10 days after Sept. 11.

Q: What ideas do you reject?
A: I try to stay away from stories that I think are too sentimental about America: too bucolic, too warm and fuzzy or too Lake Wobegon. I like the wonderful banality of America: strip malls, turnpikes, dumpy places. This is where the story is for me.

Q: How do get your ideas?
A: I read everything I can get my hands on. I jot down story ideas as notions first, then sort of report them out a little bit to see what's really there and if it's worth doing. I have the luxury of abandoning a story idea if it's not panning out. Behind me is a trail of unfinished stories that were just too hard to tell, too weird or not weird enough.

Q: How do you finesse your writing style? What help do you get from your editors?
A: I'm always in search of the fine line between snarky and heartfelt, and it really exists. Writing is a chore for anyone who does it, but it's easiest for me when I've been a good reporter, when my notebooks are filled with the tiniest details. My editor, Henry Allen, practically invented the kind of story the Style section has done best for 35 years now. I think of him as the net under my trapeze act.

Q: What reactions do you get from people you've interviewed?
A: I can never predict who will like what I've written. Some can't stand me once the article runs, some add me to their Christmas card list for all eternity. I hope they recognize themselves fondly, not antagonistically.

Q: What's the relationship between your identity as a gay writer and the topics you choose to write about?
A: I think of myself very much as a gay writer. I don't cover gay issues often, but I really want people to detect, and even enjoy, the gay sensibility in my pieces. I think it's there in the details I pick up on in stores, or the quips, or the style of storytelling. I want my stories to be smart, edgy, filled with voice (mine and others').
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NPR "Weekend Edition": Hank Stuever discusses the ideas behind his new book, "Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsehwere," transcript (aired Saturday, Aug. 21, 2004)

The Hartford Courant: "Taking the Offramp to the Beat Less Covered" By Tara Weiss, July 21, 2004

The New Mexican, Santa Fe, N.M.: "Tying up the 'loosely United States'"
By Lynn Cline, July 16, 2004

The Dallas Morning News: "Finding inspiration in the strangest of places”
By Ariana Falk, July 17, 2004

Portland Oregonian: “Veteran Yarn-Spinner Finds Telling Moments: Feature writer Hank Stuever goes ‘Off Ramp,’ Evoking Beauty and Humor in the Mundane," By Kristi Turnquist, July 30, 2004

The Albuquerque Tribune: “Quirk & Ardor: Since his early days and long into the night, journalist Hank Stuever has taken the off ramp into the American psyche,” By J.M. Barol, July 23, 2004

Hank Stuever's life has forever been about taking notes.

Short form. In his head. Heedful observations of people - of their fashions and foibles and off-center fascinations.

For most of his 35 years, Stuever has heard the fuzzy songs hiding in the background and has canvassed the surface details most of us never get close enough to brush up against.

He has built his career as a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist around the corners of life that we - you, me, he, she - obliviously pass by, unaffected by their subtle command over our culture.

The KOA Kampground. Resurrected 7-Eleven stores. Robotic dogs. Drive-throughs. The plastic patio chair.

To Stuever, those overlooked pieces of our lives are as much a part of us as our religion, our politics and our money-gobbling mortgages.

He found many of those stories here, in Albuquerque, as a Tribune reporter during the early- to mid-'90s, writing about Mexican food joints, wrestlemania, a local "pet Clouseau" and anything else that caught his quirky journalistic eye.

One of his most popular Tribune pieces was a no-holds-barred, in-depth account of a North Valley couple as they teeter-tottered their way to the altar. Although it was criticized as being "insensitive to Hispanics in general and family members in particular," according to newspaper reports, it would later be nominated for a Pulitzer - one of two nominations he received while at The Tribune.

"His observation skills are so acute," says former Tribune Assistant Managing Editor Kevin Hellyer, who was Stuever's editor during part of his time at The Trib. "He brings people to life. You hear them; you get to know them more than just inscriptively."

After leaving The Tribune in 1996, Stuever, a native of Oklahoma City, went on to work at the Austin American-Statesman in Texas and is now a writer for the style section of the Washington Post, where he covers pop culture.

He spoke with The Tribune recently to promote his new book, "Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere," a compilation of his newspaper articles over the years.

Tribune: Have you always been so observant?

Stuever: I was just sort of born sad and observant. I was a happy, happy kid, but I had a melancholy observer streak. I was much more happy about what happened at recess than to partake in recess.

It was just that social awkwardness, which journalism is a liberator for. Shy people tend to flock to it. I get to see and meet people I'd otherwise be mortified to talk to.

Tribune: How do you know what makes a good story?

Stuever: I still don't know. You could be real excited about something, and I would have to take it on faith that it's a good story. That's how I've had to sell mine. To this day I have to effuse about a story without having a perfectly packaged newsy nut (para)graph.

I never know until I hang around and look. I have my habits now how to look, which is get in my car and pull over - a lot - and go into stores - a lot - and have lunch in a neighborhood I don't know - a lot.

Tribune: Do you ever shut off your search for a story?

Stuever: I don't answer the voice in my head as much as I used to. I used to keep a really lush story idea list. Now I won't put it on the list unless I'm sure I'll do it. I'm always looking, but I'm much more choosy. I'm especially choosy after finishing this book. When I got the book in the galley form, I was, like, on one hand I was pleased but on the other hand I was, like . . . now what kind of stories are you going to do? When I'm walking or driving around or reading, I'm looking for a new antenna, some new subject for me to approach in a different way with a different writing style. But then I'm like, No, stick with what you know, kid.

Tribune: What story do you want to write right now?

Stuever: Right now, I would really like to do a story about how tourists behave at memorials. The only thing preventing me from going out and looking for people is that it's too dang hot. But the other thing is it's the perfect time to do it because of the behavior that heat brings out in people.

Tribune: You're not writing those long-form stories anymore, where you follow people around for months. Do you miss that?

Stuever: I miss it when I see it in the paper by somebody else. When I'm working on something long, I get antsy about current pop culture things that I'm not writing about. But, anyway, as far as long-form stories, they are extremely hard work.

Tribune: But people from The Trib say you made it look so easy.

Stuever: I had a lot of nights in that Tribune newsroom after the sports guys left, still working. The computers used to shut down at like 2:30 or 3 a.m. and wouldn't come back on until 4:30 when the morning editors would start rolling in. There was a time when I would wait that period out. I'd go to the Village Inn and be back there at 4:30. I really struggled putting paragraphs together sometimes. I remember writer's block, and I remember procrastinations. That's been a big bear for me. But give me a deadline, and I have no problem.

Tribune: What was your first Tribune story?

Stuever: It was when I was trying out for the G.A. (general assignment) job at The Trib (in 1990). I was sent to Acoma Pueblo at 4 a.m. on a Saturday. I was supposed to rendezvous with some residents of the tribe who were going to protest this Santa Fe woman - a white woman - who convinced the tribal leaders to have her wedding ceremony at the pueblo. It had caused a major uproar, and they were going to protest at her wedding. The plan was to cover the wedding and drive like a bat out of hell back to the interstate and call the assistant city editor and file. So I was there at dawn, and these Indians were shouting at her . . . and the whole time I was thinking: "I've got to get this job. If this is what life is like here, I've got to get this job."

Tribune: How did you react to the negative responses about the Andy and Darleine story (the North Valley couple who were getting married)?

Stuever: The question that people ask about Andy and Darleine is, are they still married. I don't know. I believe they are - without the facts. I had a very strong sense that was a love story. It was not received as a love story. It was received badly. When I go back and read that story, those two kids - though they're in their 30s now - they came from very strong family backgrounds, religious backgrounds. Family support is too light a word. They just exist for one another. People would read that story and think, "the bachelor party, the bachelorette, the partying, the drinking, the bickering - they'll never last." Sometimes I would think, if I had this story back, I would do X, Y, Z differently. Well, putting this book together, I had the story back, and I wasn't struck on anything I would do differently.

Tribune: Does Albuquerque still have stories you're interested in?

Stuever: There are a lot of Albuquerque stories. I've always entertained the Return to Albuquerque Fantasy.

Tribune: Other than comic books, what did you read as a kid?

Stuever: In about the sixth grade, I discovered the popular novel. John Irving, "The World According to Garp." Stephen King. I was not a very learned, classic person until college. Only college saved me from having Entertainment Weekly in my blood. As a kid, I read Nancy Drews, which was a supper sissy thing to do in third grade. Time Life put out a series on the 20th century in the 1970s, and I read that over and over again. I read things that I got my hands on like "Helter Skelter" and anything about Patty Hearst. I loved the idea of being kidnapped and being locked in a closet and coming out something else. It's so metaphorical.

Tribune: That sort of philosophical take is exactly what makes your writing unique.

Stuever: People have written novels about Patty Hearst motifs. That's not just me. Kids of the '70s were strongly interested in that. But I do love deep writing about Jungian archetypes. A lot of pop culture writing is about "Remember the '70s? It was all about 'Jaws.' " I see it on a deeper, darker tone. Why were people fascinated with being eaten? What is it about being broken down? What is it about the sun and the sand?

Tribune: How did those kinds of books influence your writing?

Stuever: I'm not sure. I hate to say it, but I sometimes wonder if TV and movies didn't teach me more practical things about story - about pace, about characters and about listening for dialogue. Talking at school the next day about last night's episode of "Bionic Woman" required all the reportorial skills: a good lead, details and exact quotes.

Tribune: Are you ever critical of the media?

Stuever: I'm critical of a story as I'm reading it . . . but have no overhead theory or gripes with media. When you work for a newspaper, you sure hear a lot of them. I think people who have enormous beefs with a supposed monster called "the media" have failed to understand it as a quirky, human, temporary endeavor. They see it in much more sinister and organized ways. I work in a newsroom. I see it as controlled chaos, capable of good and bad stories and capable of them every single day. I always tell people with conspiracy theories about newspapers that we in the newsroom could not conspire to order a pizza much less overthrow or plot against institutions.

Tribune: You have to really love people to do what you do. Have you always appreciated the quirks of human nature?

Stuever: I guess I do love people. I love watching people. . . . I have always been hungry to find out what people's lives are like. Not very deep down, I think I was looking (and still am) for some kind of indication of how life could be lived. I used to say I didn't have a life so I watched other people's. I think that's only part of it though. Not only was I in love with watching people, I was in love with trying to discover, or synthesize, what kind of meaning or larger story their lives told. Sort of interpreting a situation or an event or something that someone is living out. To me, that's journalism. But it took me a long time to define it that way.

Tribune: Explain how the book is separated.

Stuever: The section titled "Invisible Airplane" is my pop culture section. There's lots of hopping around in this book because I go around the country. "Star Wars." Gary Coleman. "Josie and the Pussy Cats."

The section "Traded Spaces" is human lifestyle. Home and hearth. Furniture. Weddings. Lifestyle. Convention. Neighbors.

"Everything Must Go" is about the minutia of life.

"Off Ramps" is all the stories for me that exist at the next exit. The funeral store, KOA Kampground, K-Mart, roller-skating rinks.

The next section is the heartache. Like 9-11 - although in my world it becomes the Miss America pageant.

Tribune: How'd you make that connection?

Stuever: At some point on 9-11 I said, "Oh, now what about Miss America?" They had the very same thought. They were getting ready for their pageant, and then 9-11 happened. (In the section) there's also Chandra Levy, the D.C. snipers, Oklahoma City. It went together as this concept of the elsewhere that I'm always writing about; it was not just a happy, quirky place. It was also a tragic, quirky place where bad things happen.

1. Ketchup packets
2. Lobsterfest
3. Kinko's at 2 a.m.
4. Public libraries
5. Fans camping out overnight for tickets

1. "Planet of Sound," Pixies
2. "Love My Way," Psychedelic Furs
3. "Shady Lane," Pavement
4. "You Must be Certain of the Devil," Diamanda Galas
5. The entire "Nueveo" album by Kronos Quartet

1. "The White Album," Joan Didion
2. "In Patagonia," Bruce Chatwin
3. "Holy Land," D.J. Waldie
4. "Within the Context of No Context," George W.S. Trow
5. "Naked," David Sedaris

1. Wheeled, portable signs in front of stores, with religious or patriotic slogans spelled out on them
2. Pools
3. Spare freezers in the garage
4. Deliverymen
5. Target

1. Half-vacant shopping malls
2. Bulletin boards in grocery stores
3. Conventions (of any kind)
4. Hotels
5. Los Angeles