Each semester, the Writing University hosts the 5Q Interview series with authors from the University of Iowa Press. We sit down with UI Press authors to ask about their work, their process, their reading lists and events. Today we are speaking with Joseph G. Peterson, the author of The Perturbation of O (University of Iowa Press, 2025.)

Joseph G. Peterson is author of several books of fiction and poetry, including Memorandum from the Iowa Cloud Appreciation Society (Iowa, 2022) and The Rumphulus (Iowa, 2020). He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

1. Can you tell us a little bit about your new book The Perturbation of O?
My latest book, The Perturbation of O, is a conversation between two people who are meeting each other for the first time in seventeen years. They encounter each other in a cafe by accident and Regina Blast introduces herself to Gideon Anderson who wrote a famous memoir called, Gideon's Confession. In the memoir, Gideon writes a couple of pages about Regina's art-work, because Regina is a painter, and he describes the brief sexual encounter that they shared. When the book becomes famous, partly because of a revealing episode Gideon had when he appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show, Regina becomes famous as that person in his book with whom Gideon had sex. She also becomes famous for her paintings when Oprah visits Regina's studio and in the encounter with Regina alters forever the trajectory of Regina's art career. The conversation between Gideon and Regina takes place in alternating chapters where each character in a pyrotechnic of speech responds to the other's speech. At one point in the book, Gideon is responding to Regina trying to explain why he thinks both of their lives were changed forever by their encounter with Oprah Winfrey. He says to Regina, "Shall we call it, I asked Regina, The Perturbation of Oprah Winfrey? She is an irresistible force unto herself, and one falls into her orbit by accident or will to be changed forever by the encounter." Later, Gideon refines his concept by asking if this force of Oprah which is a benevolent force should quite simply be called, The Perturbation of O? He thus names the title of the memoir of his new encounter with Regina that he will go on to write in an act of betrayal to Regina who swore Gideon to secrecy making him pledge that what happens between them stays between them.

2. What was the inspiration for this work?
I actually wrote a fake memoir called, Gideon's Confession, and in that memoir the main character describes the artwork and his sexual relationship with Regina Blast in explicit detail. I found myself reflecting on the dilemma that artists who pen memoirs must face when writing explicitly about actual people whom they had sexual relations with. I wanted to write about this sort of betrayal of privacy and so I conceived of a book that told the story of an encounter between the victim of a memoir and the writer of that memoir.

3. Do you have any plans for readings or events for this book, either in person or virtual.
I have a book launch at the Seminary Coop Book Store on June 4th at 5:00pm.
 

4. What are you reading right now? Any books from a university or independent press?
I am reading two books about how the experience of movies can change a person's life: 1) Ben Tanzer's After Hours: Scorsese, Grief, and the Grammar of Cinema published by Ig Publishing  and 2) Jeremy Cooper's Brian by Fitzcarraldo Editions. I just finished reading the marvelous Weights and Measures by Joseph Roth published by Pushkin Press.

5. What is your writing routine? Do you have a daily routine?
I don't have much of a routine... I mostly just write whenever I have a few minutes of availability.

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BUY THE BOOK: The Perturbation of O