I would like to swipe right on your book: Trying to bang down with Cactus by Nathaniel Kennon Perkins

It's like the Dating Game, only way hotter. I'm Janie and I'm trying to date your new book. In this case, I'm trying to get in with Cactus by Nathaniel Kennon Perkins and published by the gorgeous and world-shakin' Trident Press. According to Cactus' Hinge bio, it's all about [how] "In Cactus, correctional officer and ex-punk rocker Will Stephens works guarding prisoners who pick up trash on the side of the highway. One of them, a hardened inmate with a tattoo right beneath his eye, seems oddly familiar, but Will can't quite place him. When he realizes that the inmate is none other than the former lead singer of his favorite punk band, he must navigate an emotional desert landscape populated by neo-Nazis, asshole cops, guilt, student loans, and a double dose of mescaline tea."  

Since I love punk rock and really really love mescaline, I feel pretty confident that the book and I are on a one way trip to bang town. But for the sake of the game, let's Dating Game the shit out of this book: 

Q1. What was the last Netflix show that your book binged? If not on Netflix, why does your book hate capitalism? 

A. Oh Cactus hates capitalism all right. Capitalism is a big ol’ problem for Cactus. However, after years of wearing black bandannas, living in failed polyamorous intentional farmstead communities, and eating out of dumpsters, the book has resigned to a sort of existential depression that centers, conveniently enough, around having its sister’s Netflix login. The last show Cactus binged was Sex Education. This is because all the characters at least TRY to be kind to each other, which is something Cactus needs to believe in. Also, Asa Butterfield was in that movie Ten Thousand Saints (Dir. Bergman & Pulcini, 2015), which is about punk rock, and Cactus all about punk rock. Or at least it used to be.

Q2. How does your book take its coffee after a one-night stand? Why is your book having one-night stands? Is it a commitment thing? Does your book fear commitment? 

A. Cactus fears even committing to answering this question. Cactus fears expectations. Cactus fears letting everyone down. Cactus is having one-night stands in a last-ditch attempt to resurrect the ghost of a feeling of self-worth. This is why Cactus doesn’t drink coffee the next morning. Cocaine wakes it up just as well and is more effective for temporarily prolonging the ego boost provided by mediocre sex. Coffee is for later in the day.

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Q3. How would your book introduce itself to my parents? 

A. Cactus would be a little self-conscious about its face tattoo (it’s only a small face tattoo), but it would still look your parents straight in the eyes and give them firm handshakes.

Q4. Let's say your book and I are going to our favorite chain restaurant, what chain restaurant would we be going to? What drink with an unnecessary (or necessary) amount of candy in it would we get? 

A. It’s a first date. You’ve been talking to Cactus at the record store it works at, and after a few weeks you’ve started messaging each other on Instagram. You meet it after work and walk to In-N-Out because it’s by the park and Cactus is broke. You don’t get drinks because Cactus has forties and a flask in its backpack. You sit in the park and eat and drink, and Cactus talks for almost a full hour about how it used to be vegan.

Q5. Does book have any creepy discrete collections in its home? Like porcelain miniatures or bottle caps or nail clippings? 
 
A. Cactus isn’t sure if its collections are creepy, though it is worried that they might be. Covered in dust are a bunch of powerviolence and grindcore records that have disturbing and violent cover art. It has a bunch of early 20th Century French erotic novels (translated into English. It doesn’t speak French). It has stacks of horror VHS tapes. It has a folder on an external hard drive full of a collection of nude photos of all its exes. It feels incredible guilt about this folder, but can’t bring itself to delete it. It only looks through it when it is really, really drunk, and hates itself later. The folder is password protected so you won’t stumble across it.

 You meet it after work and walk to In-N-Out because it’s by the park and Cactus is broke. You don’t get drinks because Cactus has forties and a flask in its backpack. You sit in the park and eat and drink, and Cactus talks for almost a full hour about how it used to be vegan.

Q6. When your book was in high school why did it get in school suspension? 
 
A. In high school, Cactus had slightly different tastes. It got ISS for tagging “Ska Rulez!” in all the bathroom stalls. It’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend turned it in for the reward money, which was offered daily on the morning announcements. The next day, Cactus’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend walked around with a new pair of Adidas, saying, “Cactus bought me some new shoes.”
 
Q7. What is your book's sun sign / rising sign/ moon sign? And for fun, what is your book's sign in Venus because I wanna make sure that the bang-down is compatible, book knows how it is. 
 
A. Venus in Aires, dude.

Q8. Sometimes I sit in my bed and rock and cry, would your book understand that compulsion? 
 
A. Cactus didn’t think it was going to live to be 30. Then it went into the desert, took a bunch of mescaline, and everything changed. Cactus would understand. Cactus would recommend trying mescaline.

Q9. What are book's motivations? Did book birth itself like Athena jumping out of Zeus's head or did book come to life some other way? 
 
A. Not unlike Mithra born out of the rock, Cactus was born from a bucket of dirty mop water left over from the cleanup of a previous, failed attempt at a novel about being a Mormon Missionary.
 
Q10. What does book prefer: WCW or WWF (wrestling not world wildlife)? Why?
 
A. Here’s a confession: Cactus doesn’t really know anything about wrestling, which makes it feel incredibly uncool in the indie lit community right now. But Cactus has very vivid memories of one particular WWF trading card it somehow acquired in its youth: Chyna. If not for Chyna, Cactus might not have become what it is.

Q11. Has your book ever gotten into a fight with a professional sports mascot? If so, which? If not, why not? 
 
A. It’s a little bit more complicated than that. Cactus tried to take a selfie of it kissing Gritty on the mouth, and got its ass beat by security. Cactus is no stranger to ass beating. Who doesn’t want to kiss Gritty on the mouth though?
 
Q12. What movie makes your book cry? 
 
A. The movie that MOST RECENTLY made Cactus cry was Big (Dir. Marshall, 1988). That scene when Tom Hanks’s character is all sweet and innocent and sleeps on the top bunk and gives Elizabeth Perkins’s character the glow-in-the-dark compass so she won’t get lost. Goddamn.

Q13. If your book was to date any Mortal Kombat character who would it be and why isn't it Johnny Cage? (will accept Sonya as a secondary answer)
 
A. Cactus is only interested in dating Street Fighter II characters, Chun Li specifically. That upside-down spin kick. Those legs. It might like to hook up with Blanka, too. Seems electric.
 
Q14. What song does your book perform at karaoke when its pretty drunk and shouldn't be making this sort of public spectacle but does anyway because sometimes you just have to belt it out to a crowd full of grimacing strangers? 
 
A. “Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard. Cactus knows prison. Merle Haggard knows prison. “[Cactus] turned 21 in prison doing life without parole.”

Go support innovative and prose and poetry and pick up Cactus. Go support our boy and by extension all bossin' indie lit making a difference in this big bad world. ​

​Nathaniel Kennon Perkins is the author of Cactus (Trident Press, 2018) and the ongoing literary zine, Ultimate Gospel. He lives in Boulder, CO, where he works as a bookseller. His creative work has appeared in Triquarterly, Maudlin House, Keep This Bag Away From Children, decomP magazinE, Pithead Chapel, Timber Journal, the Philadelphia Secret Admirer, and others. He is the recipient of the High Country News’s 2014 Bell Prize and has gone on two US reading tours, one with the sound artist Braeyden Jae in 2015 and another with the emo band Tall Boys in 2018. nathanielkennonperkins.wordpress.com

Cactus is available for purchase on Amazon and through Trident Press's website.

And here's a little bit about Trident Press: "Our publishing interests are as varied as the books we sell in the Trident Bookstore: punk rock travelogues, occult spiritual texts, weirdo fiction, anarchist political philosophy, and vertiginous poetry, among others. However, the releases from Trident Press are more alike than they are different. They are all half-funny, half-heartbreaking, and always beautiful and inspiring. "