The Warwick's Questionnaire: Eric Puchner

The so-called Proust Questionnaire was originally a 19th-century parlor game designed to reveal bits of the soul, personality, & deep secrets of the participants through a series of pointed questions.  Versions of the quiz were re-popularized in the 20th-century by Vanity Fair and Inside the Actors Studio.  Our version - The Warwick's Questionnaire - is a series of ten questions designed to plumb the depths of the souls of visiting authors.

Eric Puchner is the author of the acclaimed short story collection, Music Through the Floor and is currently an assistant professor of literature at Clairemont McKenna College.  He visited Warwick's in September (complete event video at the bottom of the post), for the paperback release of his debut novel, Model Home. 

1. What do you consider your greatest achievement? 

Seth, Joe, Eric Puchner, & Scott.



• I pogosticked for two consecutive hours once as a child, in an effort to set a world record.

2. What is your greatest fear?

• Death

3. If you were a superhero, what would your power be?

• To be able to return shopping carts to their rightful place in the parking lot, with my mind.

4. If you could bring one writer back from the dead, who would it be?

• Myself (see number 2)

5. What is your most treasured possession?

• My five year old daughter's daily drawings for me. Also my ear plugs.

6. Which living person do you most admire?

• Alice Munro

7. If you were not able to be in the writing profession, what would your preferred occupation be?

• Rock star or zoologist

8. In ten words or less, please explain the significance of the peacock in Model Home. (This was a topic of debate when Eric was at Warwick's.  An unresolved debate.)

• The peacock is only a peacock.

9. What (were) you most looking forward to seeing on your tour stop in San Diego?

• My friends at Warwick's.

10. What is you motto?

• My senior page in my high school yearbook featured this quote by Vonnegut: "So it goes."

Model Home is set “amid the affluent splendor of the 1980s” in Southern California. It is the story of Warren Ziller and his family at the moment their American dream disintegrates. At turns comic and bleak, Puchner’s novel chronicles bad real estate deals, bad sex ed. films and bad punk bands as a middle class family splinters and is literally banished to the wilderness of the California desert. Oh, and there is a young boy who only wears orange. McSweeney’s wrote of the novel: "The only conclusion to come to after reading this novel is that Eric Puchner is a massive talent."  The Boston Globe has called Puchner "...an extraordinarily talented writer… a master of mood and tone."