Goodreads asked Nate Ragolia:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Nate Ragolia This question has multiple answers, but I'll try to be concise.

First, the idea for the poem. That was born from NaNoWriMo, of all things. My girlfriend, Jenny, was doing a remix of The Sun Also Rises for fun, and so I chose to dive back into T.S. Eliot. Originally, the concept was mostly tongue-in-cheek, but as I revisited "The Waste Land" I saw the poem in a new way. From that point, I began connecting the threads from its past to our present.

Second, the concept of the end notes. This one came through collaboration with my publisher. We discussed how to connect the poem to something larger, and a combined love of Nabokov and David Foster Wallace led to the pseudo-academic, semi-complex structure that connects the narrative to the verse.

Third, the stories. These came out of me. They are my stories, and stories of people I know (and knew). But they're also OUR shared stories, I think. The Kid is any of us at anytime, heartbroken and seeking refuge. Cheyenne is any of us, trying to prove to the world that we're valid and amazing. Doug is any of us, lost in a space of technological isolation. Paul is any of us, afraid to take a risk on a dream because of what failure (or success) might do to change us. And Nick is any of us, waking up at the end of his 20s, seeing where he's ended up and trying to rediscover passion for himself and his place.

This was an idea with many sources, within me and without me.

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