Hello Reader,

Aside from exploring the mysteries of sex, money, and family, all of life's questions -- why do we fall in love? why do we fall out of love? why do we age and die? -- are answered in Skin of Sunset.  I toss you a nugget of wisdom or a wild laugh on every page.  Now, some critics have labeled my characters unsympathetic, but before you can say, "He is bad or she is good," you must first look into your own heart, and therefore you become the subject of the work.

In any case, when you finish the book I think you'll feel exultant, happy that your life has been touched by the happiest and best moments of my characters' lives.

Cheers,

dj

Interviewer:  So what's it about?

David Johansson:  Love, blood, sex, death and money.

Interviewer: Can you break those down?

David Johansson:  When it comes to love, it’s about your mouth.  Who you kiss with it.  What you stick into it.  What you drink with it and what you say with it.  You're responsible when it makes a mess, after it has stuffed itself or said something awful or kissed the wrong person.  So just who's in charge here?  Me or my mouth?  

Interviewer: And by blood, do you mean violence?

David Johansson:  No, I mean kin.  Family.  Compared to the rest of the world, Americans and Europeans are having the fewest children.  And once the rate hits 1.3 children per couple, as it has in Greece – there comes a point from which no human society has ever recovered.  Which makes us the new Rome, I guess.

Interviewer:  Do you mean in regard to sex?

David Johansson:  Sex has become like TV – it’s considered entertainment.  For it to become tantric in the Buddhist way, that is to say spiritual and non-material – it’s the mind which gets naked.  And that’s much scarier than showing some skin.  It takes a lot of courage – not more time at the gym.

Interviewer:  And what about mortality?

David Johansson: Well, death is where we’re all headed.  In one of his letters, Hemingway comforts some friends whose sixteen-year-old son has passed away and he writes, “We’re all in this boat and none of us will make it to the far shore.  So we must be very good to each other and take good care of the boat.”  That’s a clumsy paraphrase but you get the idea.

Interviewer:  What about your book’s flap copy?  Are “it’s too late?” really the saddest words in English?

David Johansson:  I think so.  All literature reminds us to be kind.  Otherwise, you end up apologizing to a gravestone.

Interviewer:  You mentioned Buddhism.  Does the book focus on any particular religion?

David Johansson:  In the novel there are Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists and atheists.  As for me personally, the big questions – Is there a God?  What happens after we die? – have small answers.

Interviewer:  Would you give an example?

David Johansson:  A four-year-old kid squints into the sun, holding out her hand, offering you a bite of her apple.  For me that’s a divine moment. 

Interviewer:  And then there's the bottom line.  How is Skin of Sunset about money?

David Johansson:  Well, if your life straddles the millennium, you were either born BI or AI -- Before the Internet or After the Internet.  For those of us born BI, it feels like we’ve got one foot on the dock and the other on the boat.  

Interviewer: Is this book about a particular generation?

David Johansson:  In one sense, no – it’s universal, in that if you’ve got a crisis in your life, I’ll bet it has to do with love, blood, sex, death or money.  But it’s also about my generation, the one caught between Baby Boomers and Generation X.  We grew up in a paradise, by today’s standards.  No AIDS or war, yet we’ve found ourselves lost, because much of what rooted people to the earth and to each other is gone.  No land, no children, no religion.  Because we can live alone, we do.   People graduate from college, start work, and say, “So is this it?”  This book is the story of our country – well-fed, prosperous, and alone, somehow.

Interviewer:  In the book you say that “Cupid was a god the ancients feared.”  What do you mean?

David Johansson:  Well, he wasn’t a fat little baby with white wings, flying around on a Valentine card.  For the ancients, Cupid was demonic.  And terrifying.  Note the verb.  To fall in love.  To lose control.  And we’ve made that instability – the eros of romantic love – the center of our lives.  From Valentines to pornography, sexual love has been so mythologized that’s it’s bound to be disappointing, because in the end flesh doesn’t last. 

Interviewer: Does that have anything to do with the book's title, Skin of Sunset?

David Johansson:  Sure.  The sunset’s all wild color and light, but it’s only a skin of atmosphere, and I want to see what’s behind it.  I think we all do.   

"Skin of Sunset is a complex, funny and intelligent exploration of our frailties - perhaps above all our ability to endlessly and helplessly repeat our most damaging mistakes."


-- A.L. Kennedy, author of Day, Paradise and So I Am Glad

"David Johansson's novel and his characters' insights remind me of Bukowski with a bank account, Baudelaire with a sense of humor. The undeniable truth of Mr. Johansson's testimony made me laugh out loud, and shed a few tears. For that, I am indebted to him."

-- Jay Atkinson, author of City in Amber and Legends of Winter Hill

"Pick of the Month." Recommended.



-- Bookviews.com

"Skin of Sunset is intense yet meditative, and ever-verbally playful. Johansson moves deftly from one character's worldview to the next, capturing by turns the manic, quiet, and depressive sides of a love triangle that is dysfunctional even by American standards."

-- Dr. Robert Von Achen, Oxford University

"Skin of Sunset is gripping and will keep readers reading from first page to last."

-- Midwest Book Review