Brian Sweany

Brian Sweany

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Author of Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer, the new roman à clef from The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House (yep, the very one responsible for unleashing E.L. James’ 50 Shades upon the world), Brian Sweany wasn't always so keen on the written word. "Honestly, I didn’t even like to write until I was in college and noticed poems could get me laid,” he recalls. With Exotic Music being heralded as a “remarkable reinvention of the coming of age novel” by the likes of Boston University’s Department of Journalism chairman and Sweany's New York Times bestselling contemporaries, this Hoosier has no doubt come a noticeable distance from his sordid college days. But happy marriage, three children, and illustrious career in book publishing all the same, Sweany’s skirt-chasing early twenties – and hell-bent-on-destruction teenage years in small town Indiana – are not to be discounted entirely. After all, his debut's often hapless, completely debauched, and entirely charming protagonist, Hank Fitzgerald, has a great deal owing to them. And citing his influences as ranging from Chuck Palahniuk to the Olsen Twins to Kurts Vonnegut and Cobain, Sweany isn’t exactly shying away from comparisons. Fearless, funny and acutely aware, Brian Sweany has immediate availability for interview opportunities around the April 25, 2013 release of Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer to talk about: His riff on the classic Midwest ‘everyman’ tale with Exotic Music – from Judd Apatow’s Illinois (Freaks & Geeks) to the Michigan of John Hughes’ Breakfast Club, why it’s high time Indiana got its moment in the sun Why and how fathers and male role models matter to young men: “to paraphrase Palahniuk: ‘we’re a generation of men raised by women,’ and it’s fucking us up” The current ‘Oprah culture of victimhood’ as damaging to the psyches of today’s young men and women…and, in his words, “for losers” Confusing sex for love, heartache for passion, desperation for honesty and abuse for affection: the universal commonality of the teenage experience Gen X 4EVER: why he’s obsessed with women’s calves, hair metal, and getting his hair washed Please let me know if you are interested in receiving a complimentary advance review copy of Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer, or would like to set up a time to speak with Brian Sweany. We'd be more than happy to accommodate any questions or requests - and, as always, sincerely thank you for your consideration in advance. Thanks, Mr. Jaguar!! Looking forward to your thoughts. Best regards, Sarah Miniaci / SMITH Publicity, Inc. T: 856.489.8654 x 329 / E: sarah.miniaci@smithpublicity.com Praise for Sweany's Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer: “In the vein of David Sedaris or Chuck Palahniuk, Brian Sweany has written a tight satirical story that has you bent over with laughter one moment then wiping away the tears the next minute. –Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana and Donnybrook “Brian Sweany has re-invented the coming of age novel with Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer, a bawdy, unfiltered snapshot of adolescence. Hank Fitzpatrick, the hormonally challenged narrator of the story, has a remarkable capacity to be both nihilistic and tender—think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Leave It to Beaver—minus the literary pretense and relentless self-awareness of so many other protagonists in the canon.” –William McKeen, author of Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson, professor and chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University “For anyone who ever wonders about that guy in school who has more fun, more girls, more drinks, more sex, drugs, and rock and roll, more luck (and bad luck) of the Irish, Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer tells all. But behind every party is the hidden truth: that the world, if given time, will break your heart.” –Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child, a New York Times bestseller and Library Journal Best Book of the Year “Exposing the belly of the male beast is a brave thing to do. Brian Sweany writes like an American Martin Amis, and that’s a great thing.” –Alexandra Fuller, author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense best non-fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize “Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is funny and tragic, occasionally even a warm, homespun homage-to-me-familia, but it is the dark and subversive stretches that burned deeply into my psyche and kept me turning the page.” –Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park and editor of Don’t Quit Your Day Job: Acclaimed Authors and the Day Jobs They Quit “Prepare yourself for a nostalgic, strikingly honest trip back to your yearning youth.Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is more than a romp, and it will do more than jog your memory: it will run your memory over with a juggernaut of hormones, teen confusion and dawning awareness.” –David L. Robbins, author of War of the Rats, founder of the James River Writers and co-founder of The Podium Foundation
About Brian Sweany: Brian Sweany is the Director of Acquisitions for Recorded Books, one of the world's largest audiobook publishers. Prior to that he edited cookbooks and computer manuals, and claims to have saved a major pharmaceutical company from being crippled by the Y2K bug. Brian holds a B.S. in English from Eastern Michigan University, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1995. He's a retired semi-professional student, with stopovers at Wabash College (the all-male school that reputedly fired Ezra Pound from its faculty for having sex with a prostitute), Marian University (the former all-female school founded by Franciscan nuns that, if you don't count Brian's expulsion, has fired no one of consequence, and is relatively prostitute-free), and Indiana University via a high school honors course he has no recollection of ever attending. Brian has spent most of his life in the Midwest and now lives near Indianapolis with his wife, three children, and a neurotic Husky/Border mix named Hank. He’s currently working on his next project, Making Out with Blowfish, which is the sequel to Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer and the second book in a planned trilogy. Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is currently available for pre-order via The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House, and will be widely available via all major online retailers and select brick-and-mortar booksellers as of April 25, 2013. Website: http://www.briansweany.com/
Date Recorded: 6/28/2013

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