Intrepid in both fiction and life, Want Not author Jonny Miles followed Henry—a complete might-be-psycho stranger—down rubbly steps to our basement with such steady hands that neither the ice cubes cooling his bourbon nor his his teeth ever chattered. For ten years Jonny occupied a Mississippi cabin subsisting on squirrel meat and literature. A midtown crypt of broken snow shovels isn’t going to faze such a modern-day Thoreau. What will? Environmental obliteration, which is the theme of Jonny’s much-lauded novel. Since two of its protagonists, Talmadge and Micah, squat in New York City, we thought our basement would make the perfect set, and Jonny generously obliged us, reading from Want Not and discussing the challenges that complicated its five-year-long composition. Afterwards, as is the happy trend with Henry’s Southern contribs, we went out for whiskeys, talked Faulkner, and promised we’d all get together again. Hopefully well before Jonny’s next release.
CREDITS
Editor: Esther Clowney
Videographer: Jerone Hsu
Director: Shayne Barr
Assistant: Helene Nguyen
