Mark Leyner finally writes about himself, sort of

Mark Leyner's highly anticipated new book Gone With The Mind is being called a "fictional autobiography" — but what does that mean? For Leyner, it's a mix of "empirically verifiable information" and professed fantastical moments.

There's a kind of transparency to the book, which is something I've never done before actually.

Leyner — whose work includes the #1 New York Times bestseller Why Do Men Have Nipples? — says it was always "profoundly important" that he make his writing as strange and different from other writers as possible. Once he started questioning the myths of his past, those stories passed down within families that are accepted as true, he found his starting point for this book. 

That starting point, by the way, is Leyner giving a public reading in an empty food court in a mall.