The Bwog Book Club invites you to join our discussion of the first segment of Denis
Johnson's serial noir, Nobody Move. If you missed July's issue of Playboy, feel free to read the plot summary provided here and join us next time for a discussion of second segment published in this month's magazine.

Here are the main events from section one:

Jimmy Luntz, who starts off in a barbershop chorus, receives a ride from a man named Gambol. After they talk in the car and pull over at a rest stop, he realizes Gambol has been hired to hurt him because of a debt Luntz owes to a man named Juarez. Luntz shoots Gambol, calls an ambulance, and goes after Juarez. Meanwhile, Anita Desilvera, a woman about to divorce her husband, drinks heavily, and is good with guns, sees Luntz disposing of his weapon. Predictably, they end up sleeping together (after having sex in case you aren't familiar with that euphemism.) Meanwhile Gambol rehabilitates with an unnamed woman, and plans to come back at Luntz.

1. For starters, Nobody Move is, of course, published as a serial in a magazine. How much of Johnson's writing and narrative structure do you think is determined by this?

A while back we introduced readers to the next Bwog Book Club book, Denis Johnson's Nobody Move, a serial noir novel published in Playboy magazine. There's been a slight change of plans: we're reviewing the first two sections at once, starting early next week. That means you should find the nearest newsstand to pick up the August issue of Playboy if you want to join in.

This particular series is being run by first-time book-clubbers. We're thinking up some questions, but if you have any good suggestions, e-mail bwog with your words.

It has been a while since Bwog writers Pierce Stanley and Lucy Tang called to session a recent incarnation of the Bwog Book Club. For those short of memory or perhaps for whom the summer has worn on maybe a bit too long, the Bwog Book Club kicked off several weeks ago with a reading of Nathaniel Rich's debut novel The Mayor's Tongue. Bwog was fortunate enough to sit down recently with Mr. Rich for an interview to discuss the challenges of writing a debut novel. Lucky for Bwog, the discussion took place in the comfort of The Paris Review's famed TriBeCa offices. Bwog is grateful to Mr. Rich (and The Paris Review) for hosting us so hospitably and for dedicating time for discussion of The Mayor's Tongue.

Bwog: We'll start the interview with the book, The Mayor's Tongue. It was a great debut.

Nathaniel Rich: Thanks -- it took a long time to write, about five or six years. I worked on it in total secrecy for most of that period, and while I was working on it I always had other jobs, and was living in different places. There was never a sustained period where I sat down and wrote the whole novel. It was something like a process of accretion. That said, nothing in the book came about in a haphazard way -- for the first two years I worked on the book, much of what I was doing was writing an outline, and planning the novel's structure. At the beginning there was way too much planning -- not enough writing. I blame it on nerves.

Bwog: Is that why there is a parallel structure to the work? It is sort of bizarre how the parallel stories never meet. Which came first? How did it all come about?