In between the House and Senate chambers of the State Capitol sitsTim Youd, methodically pounding the keys of his Remington typewriter. It’s similar to the one Robert Penn Warren used to write “All the King’s Men,” which Youd, a visual and performance artist from Los Angeles, is re-typing.
"Which, if you know the story," says Youd, "contains a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long."
It’s part of his 100 Novels project, where he re-types an entire novel in a location that’s integral to the story. "Here I am in the State Capitol close to the end of a twenty-four to twenty-five day straight typing exercise to get through All the King's Men," he says.
This is the forty-fourth novel he's re-typed as part of the project and the fifth done in Louisiana since arriving in October. In the French Quarter, he re-typed John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. Under an oak tree in Point Coupee, he re-typed The Autobiography of Ms. Jane Pittman. Outside of a theater in New Orleans, Youd finished The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. And in Independence, he completed Modern Baptist, written by James Wilcox.
