Hypertext Magazine asked Joe Ponepinto, author of Mr. Neutron, “What question do you wish you’d been asked about your work?”
By Joe Ponepinto
What made you dare to try a new take on the Frankenstein story?
It didn’t start out that way. When I began writing Mr. Neutron it was mostly a humorous take on some of the experiences I had when I worked in politics. In the city where I worked, we had one serial, fringe candidate who was something of a lovable oddball — the kind of guy who would rip off his shirt, revealing about 250 pounds of blubber, during a candidates’ debate and sing his campaign theme song. (OK, maybe not so lovable.) I tried to include him in the story. But my writers’ group, many of whom wrote speculative books, didn’t think the tale that interesting.
With each round of revision I pushed this character further into the realm of the strange. And then something clicked — what if, instead of a minor character, I put him in the spotlight and had him run for mayor? What if, instead of just a regular oddball, I made him supernatural? After all, most candidates for office seem in some sense not quite human. I rewrote, I tinkered. And then I started to realize I was moving him closer to the Frankenstein character. But I’d never read the book, only seen the movies.
I happened to be going on a writing retreat, so I brought a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with me. There’s so much more in that incredible novel than could ever be brought to the screen (but if you ever want a real taste of the book, watch the Kenneth Branagh version, with Robert De Niro as the monster). That’s not to say I simply copied the plot, far from it. The story is still mine. But the insights that Shelley gives her readers into the nature of life and the possibilities of creation truly inspired me. My story became something more than humor and science, as those underlying themes slowly built to make the climax of the story an event that even now I can hardly believe was my invention. It’s what eventually got it published. And for those who are familiar with Shelley’s book, there are little nods to her genius embedded in a few chapters.
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Joe Ponepinto is the founding publisher and fiction editor of Tahoma Literary Review, a nationally recognized literary journal that has had selections reproduced in Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Best Small Fictions, and other notable anthologies. He is the winner of the Tiferet: Literature, Art & the Creative Spirit 2016 fiction contest, and has had stories published in dozens of literary journals in the U.S. and abroad. A New Yorker by birth, he has lived in a variety of locations around the country, and now resides in Washington State with his wife, Dona, and Henry, the coffee-drinking dog.
Pick up a copy of Mr. Neutron HERE.
