The author formerly known as acclaimed illustrator Lou Beach is debuting a collection of short fiction titled 420 Characters (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011) this week. For the social-network-media-challenged, the title refers to the maximum number of characters that a Facebook message may contain.

Hmmm, you might wonder, as I did when I first heard of this enterprise. But Lou explained, in a recent email, that when Facebook came along, he was astonished, even horrified—quite repelled, in fact—by the banality of communications that began polluting his inbox. Not one to let things like this slide by, he stated (to himself, of course), “It is possible to write something really brief that’s worth reading.” So he showed ‘em.

A sampling of artwork from 420 Characters, copyright and coutesy Lou Beach.

The forthcoming 420 Characters, which is a beautifully produced little handful with crimson linen boards and gold stamping for the pretty title graphic, contains 169 fictional nuggets, one to a page, that range from rowdy, to ribald, to reflective—and which are also highly literate (as in “literary fiction”). Terry Gilliam says, “Lou Beach uses words with no sympathy to the reader. He beats us senseless with his brilliance.” I have to agree, but take a look for yourself:

FOR-EV-UH. She had it tattooed in a little arc over her left boob, like a military patch. She’d punch me in the arm, punctuate each syllable, leave a blue mark. Told me that’s how long her love would last, shouted it out. After a few months she seemed distant, took off one night for Tulsa with the drummer from a hair band. I went to Skin’N’Ink, asked Mooney if he could make me a tattoo of a bruise, put it up on my arm.

Next weekend, you can catch up with Lou on Kurt Anderson’s Studio 360, which airs on NPR. In addition, he’ll be on a segment of NPR’s Weekend Edition this weekend. Please check your local stations for airtimes. Until you get your own copy of the book, you can read some of these stories on Lou’s website.

This just in: There’s a rumor circulating that Studio 360 is inviting listeners to submit their own 420-character stories to a competition that will be judged by Lou. That’s all I can say; you’ll have to tune in for details.

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