The thing about Duvay Knox’s writing is that it looks fun. I found out about him on Substack, and quickly noticed his generous use of bold, italics, and phonetic spelling. Sometimes, maybe quite often, when writers do this, it looks forced. But that’s not the case with Knox. When you read a Pimpfucius post, all the extra visual stuff makes sense because he’s giving you wisdom and humor with extra seasoning.
Intrigued by his Substack, I decided to check out his books. I wasn’t disappointed. The Pussy Detective and Soul Collector are highly original stories with a lot of humor and philosophy thrown in. They don’t seem like it at first glance, but these are stories about love, the value of sex, and the meaning of life.
In this podcast, I talk to Knox about his books, how his very colorful life inspired his writing, and several other topics, including the ethics of pimping, hoodoo in the Deep South, and his time as a boxer and stand-up comedian. I had a lot of fun doing this interview, and I hope you have fun listening to it.
***A few notes/links:***
Hoodoo
If you want to learn more about hoodoo, there are many easy to find articles online. But for the literary-inclined, you might want to read Zora Neale Hurston’s 1931 essay, ‘Hoodoo in America.’ You’ll have to log in to the Jstor site to access this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/535394?read-now=1
Otherwise, just google around for “hoodoo.”
I was wrong about the scientific paper I mentioned
Kind of. Well, okay -more than kind of. Anyways, was misremembering a tweet that described a study I didn’t read and said researchers found traces of DNA from the a mother’s past partners. What the study actually found was physical traits in a mama fly’s offspring resembled those of previous mates. This is called telegony and it has been theorized about since ancient Greek times. So basically, men have been fretting about this issue forever, which is kinda funny.
Dick Gregory
Just in case some of y’all youngsters don’t know who Dick Gregory is, he’s one of the most influential stand-up comics in American history and is best known for his ability to infuse comedy with social satire. It’s safe to say that he influenced, in some way, every comedian who talks about political or social issues since the 1970s. Check out some of his old videos on Youtube. This is an early one:
That’s about it. I might add some more later. But for now, enjoy the interview!
Toxic Lit Podcast # 1: Interview with Duvay Knox