Latest news with #JasonMott
USA Today
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Why National Book Award winner Jason Mott keeps writing Nicolas Cage into his novels
Jason Mott may have found the cure for male loneliness: a cage match. No, we're not talking about MMA or pro wrestling. Twice a year, Mott, the National Book Award-winning author, has about a dozen friends over to his house in North Carolina to watch back-to-back Nicolas Cage movies. That's his kind of 'Cage match.' In a culture lacking male friendship amid the ballooning manosphere, these regular marathons are a healthy way for the group of college friends to make time for each other (and nerd out over "Lord of War.") If you've read Mott's 'Hell of a Book,' which won the National Book Award in 2021, you know where this is going as Cage has a presence in that book (though Mott has never met him, he's just a massive fan). The actor is also mentioned in Mott's new book, a quasi-sequel called 'People Like Us.' Cage is an apt metaphor for 'People Like Us' (out now from Penguin Random House), which often blends the real Jason Mott with a fictionalized version of himself. He's open about some of the real bits in the novel, like speaking at a university where a shooting has just occurred and signing autographs after getting mistaken for Ta-Nehisi Coates and Colson Whitehead, two award-winning authors who are also Black. He's coy about others, like when characters mingle with an unnamed French benefactor and an author named 'Not Toni Morrison.' And this book should be Mott's most meta. 'People Like Us' started out as a memoir; a tongue-in-cheek note to readers is signed by 'The Author (with legal breathing down his neck)'. What happens after you win a National Book Award? In 2021, Mott was sitting alone in an office when he found out he won the National Book Award over Zoom. His 'Hell of a Book' is a commentary on racism and gun violence in America, telling the story of a Black author on a cross-country book tour and a young Black boy living in a rural town in the past. He was up against bestsellers like 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' by Anthony Doerr and 'Matrix' by Lauren Groff. When his girlfriend asked if he wanted company during the ceremony, he said no. 'No, when I lose, I want to cry by myself,' he recalls saying. He laughs as he recounts the aftermath. 'I wound up sitting alone in an office by myself as I won the National Book Award, which sounds very sad when I say it out loud like that.' Suddenly, Mott's quiet year turned into a global tour, 'overpopulated with events.' He became part of a small number of people who can say they've won the esteemed prize. In 'People Like Us,' Mott's character 'the Author' embarks on a similar tour abroad (only called "The Continent") after winning what's referred to as 'The Big One.' On the cover, a tiny character is crushed by a faux gold award emblem. In the book and in real life, the book tour tone shifts after the award. Mott had been used to talking about grief, inspiration and writing process on the road for his resurrection novel 'The Returned.' 'Hell of a Book' came out just a year after George Floyd was killed. Readers wanted to ask him about race and identity. European readers, he recalled, were curious about what it was like to live as a Black man in America. 'The thing I found that was most intriguing was, more than anything, they wanted me to answer for America's sins,' Mott says. 'They would ask questions about why this certain legislature came through, and how I feel about this legislature, and why do I choose to stay in America with all the gun violence? And what does it feel like being a Black person in America, knowing the history of America?' Jason Mott started writing a memoir. It became his new novel. After the tour, he needed to reflect and process. He wanted to write about how it felt to come back to a country riddled with gun violence. He wanted to write about how minority authors sometimes feel 'interchangeable' to the book world. He wanted to write about the surreal aftermath of winning the National Book Award. He started journaling. He had enough to write a memoir – so he did. But when he was a few rounds into revisions, he realized the characters from 'Hell of a Book' were weaseling their way into his story. 'I struggle with a lot of privacy, I struggle with being in the spotlight too much,' Mott says. 'The more I made a memoir, the more difficult it actually became for me as a writer to actually explore the story and explore the ideas.' He's never been a 'sequel guy,' but knew he had more to say with these characters. What would happen if he brought them back and put them into situations that he had experienced? He wasn't sure if it would land with a publisher. Would anyone want to read that? Luckily, he had the 'Big One' under his belt. In 'People Like Us,' Jason Mott leans into a meta story 'People Like Us' is a dizzying, fever-dream of a novel – captivating with wit, satire and heartbreak. It's often hard to tell what's real or not real, but that makes it all the more thrilling to read. Mott, even as a reader, loves "those books that are just on the edge of realism." Writing this book was 'liberating' to Mott, and he took more risks with time jumps, speculative themes and new characters. He could also poke fun at the literary world, which he does heavily. And he's prepared for questions on tour about what's real and what's made up. After all, there are a lot of shocking, often violent moments in this novel. But he's playing it cool. He says it's more fun to let people guess and decide for themselves what he means. 'People oftentimes wonder if there's any pressure that I feel having won the National Book Award, and for me, I think it was exactly the opposite, where any sense of pressure that I might have had about myself as a writer just kind of dissolved into nothing,' Mott says. 'For me, I did the biggest thing that I ever had dreamed of doing in writing in winning the National Book Award. And so after I climb Everest, I don't look for Everest part two … that is enough. From here on out, I just get to have fun with my writing, do what I want to do, experiment, be weird.' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
New York Times
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Seeking a ‘Brown Man's Paradise' to Escape the Land of the Free
PEOPLE LIKE US, by Jason Mott Guns are central to 'People Like Us,' Jason Mott's darkly comic and tragic new novel. Close to the book's end, no matter how hard an accidental killer tries to throw away his pistol into a river, it's 'still there, floating, hung in midair like a steel question mark.' Mott's striking metaphor for the consequences of violence in America haunts the protagonists, both Black writers, who feel compelled to carry concealed weapons. The first of them is Soot, a middle-aged 'low-budget, Black Jack London' from North Carolina, who visits a college in Minnesota where several students were killed recently by a lone gunman. Surely Soot ought to know better than to pack a handgun. Not only has he sat through hours of cautionary training films on active shooters, but his own family story is scarred by memories of gun violence. Mott artfully depicts Soot's perplexing attachment to his gun as emblematic of a uniquely American condition, the normalization of 'Second Amendment ornaments' despite their devastating effects. The other writer is named only once; all other mentions are cheekily redacted with black bars. Sometimes, for his own amusement, he assumes the identity of Ta-Nehisi Coates — let's call him Not Coates. Less famous than Coates, he is nonetheless ascendant after winning a National Book Award. On the downside, he's stalked by Remus, a terrifying, spectral mugger of sorts who resembles James Earl Jones and in several encounters rams his hand 'knuckle-deep' into Not Coates's mouth. Remus doesn't want the writer's money; he just threatens to kill Not Coates but doesn't specify when this will happen. Not Coates decides to get out of Dodge, armed with a .45-caliber Colt 1911. James Baldwin, who moved to France in 1948, once wrote that his 'flight had not been to Paris, but simply away from America'; Not Coates, too, flies to 'Euroland' to get away from Remus, a proxy for the existential threat to the Black writer in America. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Toronto Star
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
Book Review: Jason Mott's ‘People Like Us' explores the struggles of semi-fame and American identity
How does one follow up writing 'A Hell of a Book' that wins the National Book Award? If you're Jason Mott, you write a sort-of, not-really, by all legal terms fictionalized — according to the forward — autobiographical story about what life is like as a semi-famous writer. Or actually you write two viewpoints: one about a writer running away from his roots that seem to be choking the life out of him and the other about a writer running to help soothe the roots that made him.
Winnipeg Free Press
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Book Review: Jason Mott's ‘People Like Us' explores the struggles of semi-fame and American identity
How does one follow up writing 'A Hell of a Book' that wins the National Book Award? If you're Jason Mott, you write a sort-of, not-really, by all legal terms fictionalized — according to the forward — autobiographical story about what life is like as a semi-famous writer. Or actually you write two viewpoints: one about a writer running away from his roots that seem to be choking the life out of him and the other about a writer running to help soothe the roots that made him. The first, a middle-aged man who wrote said award-winning novel, is constantly misrecognized because writers, even award winning ones, don't have status like film stars. Sometimes he goes along with it and he agrees with them, for good reason; there is safety in being someone else. The second is a man who can't seem to outrun what it means to be American or a stalker who threatened to kill him, both showing up, often when least expected. This makes man No. 2 run not only from death and America but to seek out purchasing a gun, because his fame isn't able to protect him. This novel, reminiscent of 'The Invisible Man' and the works of Colson Whitehead and Ta-Nehisi Coates, has an inquisitive stance on things like time travel, sea monsters, death of loved ones and guns, and what each can do to a man, especially those who seem to be the referential mouthpiece of what it means to be an American today. One man meanders through Minnesota, offering support to the masses through speaking engagements. The other lands what seems to be a dream job in 'Europeland.' Through old memories, the drudgery of book tours, the never ending 'what's next' endlessly questioning their creativity, both imagine what could be and what could have been. The flipping between the two men's viewpoints of the world and what it can offer is humorous one moment and tugs at the right heartstrings the next. This roller coaster ride filled with quips and wordplay personalizes some of the most tragic moments in America's recent history. The tragedy and pain through this never ending climb to make sense of all that has come before, and all that will come after, is 'like Sisyphus, a man who never misses leg day.' Filled with highlightable quotes and moments that make you stop and look around to see if anyone else is experiencing what you're reading, Mott's 'People Like Us' echoes the pain and mystery of where life leads, the choices it hands us and the hope and desire for change. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. ___ AP book reviews:
Hindustan Times
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Book Review: Jason Mott's 'People Like Us' explores the struggles of semi-fame and American identity
How does one follow up writing 'A Hell of a Book' that wins the National Book Award? If you're Jason Mott, you write a sort-of, not-really, by all legal terms fictionalized — according to the forward — autobiographical story about what life is like as a semi-famous writer. Book Review: Jason Mott's 'People Like Us' explores the struggles of semi-fame and American identity Or actually you write two viewpoints: one about a writer running away from his roots that seem to be choking the life out of him and the other about a writer running to help soothe the roots that made him. The first, a middle-aged man who wrote said award-winning novel, is constantly misrecognized because writers, even award winning ones, don't have status like film stars. Sometimes he goes along with it and he agrees with them, for good reason; there is safety in being someone else. The second is a man who can't seem to outrun what it means to be American or a stalker who threatened to kill him, both showing up, often when least expected. This makes man No. 2 run not only from death and America but to seek out purchasing a gun, because his fame isn't able to protect him. This novel, reminiscent of 'The Invisible Man' and the works of Colson Whitehead and Ta-Nehisi Coates, has an inquisitive stance on things like time travel, sea monsters, death of loved ones and guns, and what each can do to a man, especially those who seem to be the referential mouthpiece of what it means to be an American today. One man meanders through Minnesota, offering support to the masses through speaking engagements. The other lands what seems to be a dream job in 'Europeland.' Through old memories, the drudgery of book tours, the never ending 'what's next' endlessly questioning their creativity, both imagine what could be and what could have been. The flipping between the two men's viewpoints of the world and what it can offer is humorous one moment and tugs at the right heartstrings the next. This roller coaster ride filled with quips and wordplay personalizes some of the most tragic moments in America's recent history. The tragedy and pain through this never ending climb to make sense of all that has come before, and all that will come after, is 'like Sisyphus, a man who never misses leg day.' Filled with highlightable quotes and moments that make you stop and look around to see if anyone else is experiencing what you're reading, Mott's 'People Like Us' echoes the pain and mystery of where life leads, the choices it hands us and the hope and desire for change. book reviews: /hub/book-reviews This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
