Nick Tosches

Johnny's First Cigarette - La Première Cigarette De Johnny Nick Tosches English And French, Bilingual edition

Once upon a time, Nick Tosches was a young boy.

An Interview with Nick Tosches by Benoît Laudier of Éditions Vagabonde

BL : Who is Johnny?
NT: Johnny is me, long ago, and seen through the veil of fiction. As with all memories, it is more imagination than reality. All memories are pearls made from just a sand-grain of truth. But we confuse the pearl with the truth. And Johnny is every young person drifting from the purity of childhood to the lies of adulthood.

BL : What is the central theme of the book?
NT: As Rimbaud said: Tout ce qu'on nous enseigne est farce. Everything we are taught is a lie.

BL : If this book were music, what kind of music would it be?
NT: If this little book were a piece of music, it would be a cello suite performed in turns con brio and con molto sentimento, and with octobrisme throughout.

BL : What would you (as a priority) share with the readers?
NT: That a politically correct world is a world destroyed. That a politically correct world is the most dangerous hazard to health. That the butterflies in the breeze love the freedom that we deny ourselves. That this little story is, above all else, simply the story of a boy and his first cigarette.