Sunday, February 17, 2008


Yes, I am Louis Kemp from the novel Taipei Mutt. The writer was a friend of mine during my first stint in Taiwan. Or rather: kind of a friend. Fact is he stole parts of my story to make his "novel," which pissed me off for awhile, him using my real name especially. I've forgiven him since, and we're on good terms now. A lot of the book wasn't true anyway, though it is true that I was changed into a dog. Those who still say it isn't, that I was suffering delusions, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. This photo of me, taken near the end of my time as a dog, should help prove the skeptics wrong. I have more evidence if anyone cares to ask about it.

Anyhow I’m back in Taipei, I’m well again--the new meds actually work--and I’m teaching English like I planned to do the first time. I’ve gotten over my ire about the book, and Mader (maybe as a way to pay me back for stealing my story?) has even agreed to a request of mine. He’s going to let me edit his manuscript so as to bring it closer to my actual memories. So here it’ll be my version of what happened--finally. Mader is also letting me post the re-edited chapters on his blog, since he doesn’t much care about the further few thousands of NT he might make from selling copies of the novel. Anyhow that’s what he claims. Mader’s book, in any case, is pretty heavily fictionalized, though this edited version, I’m telling you myself, is going to be just as it all really went down.

It's kind of strange posting on Mader’s blog though--most of his writing is about gnosticism and theology and the Bible, quite different from what you’ll find in my own story. But I’ll be sending him the edited chapters, and he's agreed to post them.

Mader’s book was called A Taipei Mutt. My version, sharper, meaner, truer, I’ll just call Mutt. Check out the first chapter here.

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