Dark / Drama / Thriller
Date Published: July 28, 2023
Publisher: Troubadour Books
“Love before Covid - A raw, philosophical dive into love’s
messy reality—unflinching, dark, and unapologetically human. Unlike
typical romance novels, LOVE BEFORE COVID is a dialogue-driven exploration
of human flaws and ideologies, blending fiction with metaphysical inquiry.
It’s not about comfort; it’s about confrontation and
insight.”
Laced with dark humour, it is best described as traumatic (sur)realism.
Love Before Covid takes the reader on a journey through the mind of Joe
Pastorius - jazz fan, poet, and victim of horrendous sexual and emotional
abuse at the hands of his mother.
The real-time dialogues between the characters that emerge from Joe’s
unconscious come via arguably corrupted memories and dystopian dreams. They
tell us more about Joe than he could ever know, and perhaps more about our
world than you could ever imagine.
Dialogues entail an exploration of clashing perspectives and opinions, that
cause reflection. Today though, our world has been infiltrated by online
dialogues that tend to feel like wild unfiltered streams of human thought,
raw, chaotic and often polarising and devoid of much reflection. Arguably
that attitude, and lack of reflection is mirrored by the characters you will
encounter. The reflection comes from the reader as the situations unfold.
Your moral boundaries will without doubt be pushed to the limit.
You will meet an altruist who can’t stand up for himself, a charming
but violent public intellectual, a beautiful dancer who hates fat people, a
flirty and gregarious bartender who will do anything to get pregnant, a
traumatised art historian who never wants to be a mother, a successful
intellectual Mexican writer who is secretly disapproving of her childhood
friend’s career as a pornstar, the teenage genius son of that pornstar
who has sexual fantasises about his mother, a woman who is pressured into
cutting off her penis and a successful therapist who has a habit of ruining
people’s lives.
And yes, before you ask, some of the characters in this book eventually
catch Covid 19. However, there is always hope. For Joe Pastorious, that
comes in the form of the psychopath named Janet Waverley.
Interview
Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?
My writing doesn’t have messages as much as it has particular ideas and obsessions it tries to get the reader to grapple with in a way which is honest and thrilling. In Love Before Covid, those ideas and obsessions are 1) the downsides of unconditional love, 2) how parenthood is something people are often coerced into, 3) how sexual freedom without responsibility can collapse into emotional abuse, and 4) how romantic longing is often bound up with a hunger for danger.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
I’m interested in a kind of writing that isn’t afraid to challenge sacred cows. It’s not so much about saying “society is wrong about X”, as much as it is getting the reader to feel and think honestly about what X actually is. Although the writing in Love Before Covid is formally experimental (it’s mostly in dialogue form), it’s actually quite easy to read. This is because for me, the bits of the book that should be challenging are not about getting the reader to understand what is going on. It’s about getting the reader to experience, in a visceral way, the contradictions, hypocrisy and pain of the human experience. And also to see that there is a kind of nobility in that darkness; in one’s ability to integrate aspects of life in a way where, no matter how much despair, there is also a promise of wholeness, a promise of transcendence and love.
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
I am currently finishing my second novel (The Male Gaze: A Fairy Tale). Love Before Covid (my first novel) is technically my favorite of my book, but only because it is the one work which is finished. I suspect when my second book is finished, that will be my favorite. Every book will be “my favorite” when it is newly finished. That’s just how I am.
If You had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you pick and why?
I wouldn’t. I would rather write and direct my own film, instead of allowing my book to be made into a film by a Hollywood studio. My book is explicitly written to be imagined by the reader, upon encountering the book’s text. That means if a Hollywood director tells an audience, “This is Kiera Knightly and she’s Janet, the crazy psychopath who is also somehow a good romantic partner”, that would effectively kill Janet. Janet is supposed to exist in your imagination, whatever that looks like. It’s true that I absolutely adore cinema and would love to write and direct films in the future. But for me, stories that are best suited for books are stories that are most magical on the silver screen of the mind’s eye. Translating Love Before Covid into a Hollywood movie would kill that magic.
When did you begin writing?
I began writing fiction when I was running an online political magazine called Culture on the Offensive (2015-2020). Love Before Covid began as a series of Socratic dialogues I published for my magazine in 2015, dialogues about love, procreation and sex that eventually evolved into a story about an overweight man with a psychopathic girlfriend. What transformed these writings from isolated dialogues into a novel was my evolving excitement for a certain two part idea: 1) a philosophical novel can be driven by dialogue, rather than by plot (2) that same novel can be more harrowing, exciting, surprising, and emotionally violent than a novel driven by plot. I loved this idea, because when I think of a dialogue driven philosophical novel, I imagine a novel in which nearly nothing happens, the text is difficult to understand, and the story has minimal drama and pathos. Love Before Covid is the exact opposite of that.
How long did it take to complete your first book?
I began writing the first dialogue (Romance) in 2014. The ending of the book during the Covid pandemic was written during the spring of 2021. The first edition of the book was released in October of 2021. The second edition was released by Troubadour books in July of 2023.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
While there isn’t a single author who inspired me, there are a range of authors I draw huge inspiration from: Carl Jung, George Bataille, George Orwell, William S. Burroughs, Haruki Murakami, William Gibson, Ted Chiang, Anthony Burgess, Ann Quinn, Kathy Acker, Henry Green, Sylvia Plath, B.S. Johnson, Christine Brooke-Rose and Donald Barthelme.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
I love everything after the first draft and before the final draft (where all I do is search for typos). The first and last drafts are the most painful. But the middle drafts are where the real creativity happens.
Describe your latest book in 4 words.
Love Before Covid Hurt
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the future for your writing?
I am currently finishing a novel about two women who live in London. The first is a lesbian dwarf named Lola Moraz (who is American) who has never had sex, believes she is ugly, and is depressed to the point of being suicidal. But she’s also a brilliant writer who pens quite deep, erotic and highly philosophical essays about her favorite porn stars. Lily Parkington is Lola’s favorite porn star. But Lily is also a cruel woman who does sadistic pranks where she humiliates people who are brazen enough to try and seduce her. Lily does one of these pranks on a female dwarf, not realizing her victim is Lola. Then we find out Lola happens to be Lily’s favorite writer. And Lily also becomes aware that her favorite writer has been so sexually obsessed with her, that Lily’s porn literally stopped Lola from committing suicide, during the pandemic.
About the Author
During the pandemic Dr Greg Scorzo completed his first novel ‘LOVE
BEFORE COVID’ as well as producing an innovative radio play based on 6
chapters from that book, also called – LOVE BEFORE COVID. available on
our YouTube Channel. and via Audioboom with links to all major podcast
platforms.
Greg says, “I was interested in the challenge of writing a novel that
was formally experimental, while still being easy for a mass audience to
read and understand. I love the idea of a piece of philosophy that is
simultaneously a work of fiction, and a philosophical thought experiment
which can function like a great, twisty roller coaster of a story that asks
the reader many questions. Unlike traditional philosophy and many
fashionable works of literature, this book purposefully asks questions
without giving answers, encouraging readers to think (and emote) for
themselves.”
Since gaining his PhD in Philosophy in 2011, Greg Scorzo has aimed to find
creative and original ways to take philosophical thinking outside of
academia. By using modern accessible philosophical dialogue inpublic talks,
podcasts and his novel Love Before Covid, Greg explores clashing
perspectives and opinions that cause reflection. Based in Leicester, he was
a founding member of Culture on the Offensive and runs the podcast The
‘Art of Thinking’.
Dialogues entail an exploration of clashing perspectives and opinions that
cause reflection. Statements and declarations can close minds.
The ‘Art of Thinking’ with Greg Scorzo podcast is available on
YouTube where he does friendly philosophical interrogation of ideas
with many interesting thinkers. Also available via Audioboom linking to all
major podcast platforms.
His extended essays on Arts and Culture as well as Cultural Issues are
available on this platform www.gregscorzo.com
He has a passion and extensive knowledge of film and music.
From 2017 – 2020 Greg Scorzo was active in running over 60 engaging
voluntary community sessions, centred around ‘The Art of
Thinking’ The focussed on universal philosophical themes,
arts and culture and cultural issues. The ethos behind these events was to
encourage the use of EMPATHY, CLARITY and COURAGE in ensuing dialogues with
the audience. These were organised by COTO.
He also took up invitations to partner and run sessions at other events,
including the Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican London, the
Philosophy Now conference, Leicester Comedy Festival and DeMontfort
University’s Cultural Exchanges festival. He is always interested to
partner up with other like minded people.
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