Pilgrim Power
Humor and drama on the journey to find the meaning of life interview by Cathy Carroll “This is the story of a pilgrim named Kevin Maloney,” we learn in the prologue to the novel The Red-Headed Pilgrim, autobiographical fiction by Kevin Maloney. Our hero hails from Beaverton, “a suburb of Portland the way the Monkees are a suburb of the Beatles.” A twisted JV football drill sends him running for the forest, sparking an existential crisis. His parents line up a therapist who offers him a copy of Siddhartha, and his pilgrimage eventually ensues. Think On the Road meets Napoleon Dynamite in the latest from this Portland-based author. You’ve said that half of writing is skill and half from how you live your life. Can you elaborate? When I was younger, I used to be dazzled by fancy sentences in books. I still am, but as I’ve gotten older, I…