From Frank Reiss:
N. Frank Daniels is an extremely serious writer and, seemingly, a very grounded young man. He acknowledges that his novel--about a group of young people mixed-up in Atlanta's drug culture in the 1990s--is largely autobiographical. It's a pretty jarring experience to be sitting down with such a gentle-seeming soul and knowing, after reading Futureproof, the brutal reality that was his young life.
He is now sober, and, in addition to having his first novel published, has completed a second novel, is working on a memoir , is raising two children and seems, after a long, arduous process, to have found his place in the world, among fellow writers (now friends) like Jay McInerney, Jerry Stahl and James Frey.
Daniels talked about his literary lineage, citing Richard Wright and Hubert Selby, Jr. among his influences, and he shared his fascinating account of how his book, originally posted online and then self-published, eventually found its way to a major publishing house, HarperPerennial, whom Daniels calls "the Grove Press of the new milennium." Grove, incidentally, published Selby's masterpiece of drug-addiction, Last Exit to Brooklyn.
Futureproof is not for everybody. But for a terrifyingly real portrait of an easily ignored subculture that exists right in our midst, among truly lost souls--and mere children at that, you couldn't ask for a better guide than N. Frank Daniels.
Join Frank Reiss as he interviews N. Frank Daniels on this weekend's Cover to Cover, Sunday at 8PM. Only on Georgia Public Broadcasting.
