Roberge, Rob

PERSONAL: Married; wife's name Gayle. Hobbies and other interests: Writing music, playing guitar, singing for garage bands, collecting and repairing old guitars and quack medical devices.

ADDRESSES: Home—CA. Office—c/o UCLA Extension Writers' Program, 10995 Le Conte Ave., Rm. 440, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1333. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Doublewide Press, Los Angeles, CA, founder and publisher, 2001–; University of California Los Angeles Extension Writers' Program, Los Angeles, CA, teacher, c.1996–.

WRITINGS:

Drive, Doublewide Press (Los Angeles, CA), 2002.

More than They Could Chew (crime novel), Perennial Dark Alley (New York, NY), 2005.

Author, and director, of short film Honest Pete. Contributor to anthologies, including Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and It's All Good. Also contributor to periodicals, including Zyzzyva, Chelsea, Other Voices, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Fatal Embrace.

SIDELIGHTS: Rob Roberge has a diverse resume that includes being the author of plays, screenplays, and novels as well as writing music and playing guitar for garage bands. He is also the founder and publisher of the small print-on-demand publisher Doublewide Press, in Los Angeles. His first novel, Drive, takes a look at people who live on the fringes of society, a group that has always fascinated the author. The characters are members of a newly formed baseball league based in Sarasota, Florida. Misfits, they each have their own unique story.

More than They Could Chew, Roberge's follow-up novel, delves deeper into the same fringe lifestyle. It tells the story of Nick Ray, a desk clerk at a rundown historic hotel in Long Beach, California. Nick wants a way to communicate with his lover in secret so that her other lover, a woman, will not find out. The used computer he acquires for this purpose turns out to have previously belonged to the U.S. government. Some remnants of its past life still exist on the hard drive, ultimately causing endless problems for Nick. Booklist critic Frank Sennett remarked that "this novel's seedy charms come simply from spying on colorful losers figuring out new ways to lose." An MBR Bookwatch contributor called the book "a zany thriller."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2005, Frank Sennett, review of More than They Could Chew, p. 947.

Literary Review, fall, 1999, François Camoin, "Introducing Rob Roberge," p. 87.

MBR Bookwatch, April, 2005, review of More than They Could Chew.

ONLINE

Once Written, http://www.oncewritten.com/ (November 29, 2005), "Rob Roberge."

Rob Roberge Home Page, http://www.robroberge.net (November 29, 2005).

Writers Break, http://www.writersbreak.com/ (November 29, 2005), "Rob Roberge."