Stuff
Mark Alpert Revealed
About Mark Alpert
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What is your birthdate?:4/19
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Previous occupations:Newspaper reporter, magazine editor
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Favorite job:Statehouse reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser
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High school and/or college:Stuyvesant High School, Princeton University
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Name of your favorite composer or music artist?:The Jam
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Favorite movie:West Side Story
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Favorite television show:The Wire
Revealing Questions
- Q. How would you describe your life in only 8 words?
- A. Thriller writer and lifelong science geek
- Q. What is your motto or maxim?
- A. "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." -- Albert Einstein
- Q. What’s your greatest fear?
- A. Death
- Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?
- A. Key West
- Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?
- A. Come on, kids, hurry up!
- Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?
- A. Songwriting
- Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?
- A. Jack Burden
- Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?
- A. Skiing
- Q. What’s your fantasy profession?
- A. Major-league pitcher
- Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?
- A. Polenta
- Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?
- A. Dreams of Children (The Jam), Funky Western Civilization (Tonio K.), Thunder Road (Bruce), Maria (Bernstein/Sondheim), Anarchy in the U.K. (Sex Pistols)
On Books and Writing
- Q. Who are your favorite authors?
- A. Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, John Updike, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Russell Banks, Richard Price, Roddy Doyle, Flannery O'Connor, Robert Penn Warren, John Berryman
- Q. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?
- A. All The King's Men; The Great Gatsby; Rabbit, Run; Clockers; Affliction
- Q. Is there a book you love to reread?
- A. The Great Gatsby
- Q. How did you come to write Final Theory?
- A. While editing a magazine story about Albert Einstein, I became interested in his long, futile search for a unified field theory, a single set of equations that could explain all the forces of nature. I began to wonder what would've happened if he'd actually discovered the equations. Einstein's theory of relativity led to the development of the atom bomb; could a unified theory pave the way for even more terrible weapons? If so, Einstein might've decided to keep the theory secret. This scenario was the inspiration for "Final Theory."
