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We talk with Jesse Kornbluth about his first novel Married Sex: A Love Story

Married SexWriter, critic and author, Jesse Kornbluth created HeadButler.com a website curating items for your head. A concierge at your fingertips recommending the best intellectual and interesting products. He’s a pure advocate on items that many people have forgotten about because they are busy writing about the newest and latest gadgets. He writes about timeless, fascinating and sometimes forgotten things. Jesse is a true renaissance man in every sense of the word. Here, we talk with him about his first novel Married Sex: A Love Story, which is so hot it has already been green-lit to be turned into a film with director Griffin Dunne at the helm. In this sharply observed erotic tale about the challenges of modern marriage, when a husband convinces his wife to join him in a tryst with another woman, there are unintended consequences.

What is the best definition of a good marriage to you?

Simple: In a good marriage, the people care about one another. Really care. Not because they’re “working” at marriage.

What seems to happen to both men and women during middle age and marriage?

Even for the most successful of us, life seems to deliver less than we expected. We don’t think that’s fair. So we look for more. Sometimes it’s an affair. Or a red Tesla. Or a Birkin bag. But the motivation seems the same to me: a hunger for freedom, a rage against decay and death.

You have profiled everyone for major publications. Who was your best interview and why?

Nobody says Tom Cruise, but I do. I interviewed him in Dallas for Vanity Fair as he was preparing for Born on the 4th of July. Before we met, I sent him a note: “I know you hate to be grilled, so let’s do something.” His cousin picked me up at the hotel and drove me to the Galleria. Cruise was nowhere to be seen. Which was weird, because this is a guy who writes you a thank-you note even before you interview him. At last, a thin man in a wheelchair rolled over. He had scraggly hair and shabby clothes — it was Cruise, working on his character for the movie. As we toured this luxury mall, we talked. At one point, a kid in a wheelchair rolled over to Cruise, and they chatted. I thought how that boy would never get out of his chair and Cruise would, and I had to turn away. When I left Cruise, he was practicing “transfers’ – lifting himself from his chair into a car. On tape, he hadn’t said much. With his body, he was eloquent.

How long did it take you to write your first novel, Married Sex?

John Guare told me he wrote Six Degrees of Separation in 54 hours — but it took him 54 years of living to know what to do with those hours. So it was for me. I had the idea in 1995. But I wasn’t really ready to write it until the end of my marriage, the start of a new one and the birth of our child. After that, it only took a few years.

Do you ever worry about things that may offend people that know you in the book or even your own wife?

Of course. Especially my wife and our 13-year-old daughter. But I fought that anxiety off. It’s a novel, not a memoir. And if I softened what I needed to write, I’d probably be condemning the book to failure. Nobody in my house likes failure.

What do you see as the future for fiction and movies and entertainment in general?

I see two tiers in everything. Interesting, idiosyncratic books, movies and music, made on small budgets, for Volvo-driving, latte-drinking consumers. Predictable genre books, movies and music for the masses. My goal: to write interesting, idiosyncratic books and movies that cross over.

To purchase Married Sex: A Love Story by Jesse Kornbluth, please visit Amazon.com.

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About Cynthia Parsons McDaniel

Cynthia Parsons McDaniel works as an artist in the mediums of video installation, collage and illustration and diorama. She recently attended the National Academy Museum & School in New York City for Drawing and Visual Story Telling and Monotype Printmaking. Her collages were shown in a group exhibition at the NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN. Other exhibitions Include CHESTERFIELD GALLERY, ART TAKES SOHO, TRIBECA ART + CULTURE NIGHT, SEEME + SCOPE ART FAIR + MIAMI ART BASEL + CHASHAMA GALA + ARMORY SHOW + GUILD HALL MEMBERS EXHIBITION EASTHAMPTON LI She is represented by the New York Museum of Contemporary Art in Manhattan. At the American Museum of Natural History she studied with the curator in charge of building and maintaining their DIORAMAS. She has written about design, film and theater for METROPOLIS, ELLE DECOR, IN STYLE, ELLE, DAILY NEWS, FASHION JOURNAL and NEWSWEEK. She has contributed to five books on design and film related subjects. She was nominated for an EMMY while a producer at NBC. She was head of pr and marketing at Cannon Films, New Line Cinema and VP Grammercy Pictures, then special projects editor at IN STYLE and Features Editor New York Daily News. McDaniel then went back to working with actors on MAD MEN, WEEDS AND 30 ROCK and doing personal publicity and creating Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Academy Award Campaigns. She has produced events and handled press including European Film Awards in Berlin, Cannes Film Festival Party at Hotel Du Cap, Sundance and Toronto Film Festival and Elton John's Oscar party, re-opening of the Hall of Mirrors and the Royal Opera House at Versailles and the Bob Hope Memorial Library Ellis Island. The short she produced was shown at both the Tribeca Film Festival and the London Film festival. She recently did props for Boardwalk Empire (HBO) including window displays using antiques She has wrote a one act play about early broadway called ZIGGY and created the props by hand using various antiques and paper techniques. She has worked on over 200 movies as studio executive and worked as unit publicist in ROME BERLIN LONDON BUDAPEST LOS ANGELES PARIS working with some renowned directors including Fellini, Wertmuller, Godard and The Coen Brothers just to name a few. She was the personal publicist for Daniel Day-Lewis, Carrie Fisher, Lauren Bacall, Matthew Modine, Jane Krakowski, Paul Bettany and many other gifted actors. She is a member of National Women Film Critics Circle. She contributes to the national Arts Express Syndicate Radio WBAI RADIO. She is currently writing a memoir. http://cynthiapmcdaniel.wix.com/home/ http://vimeo.com/user51648799/videos http://www.boxdioramas.com/cynthia-parsons-mcdaniel/
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