In 2006, Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” taught the world that life may be best expressed as a japa mala, the set of a hundred and eight prayer beads that she saw during her travels in India. That might be true if you’re interested in enlightenment, spiritual growth, and you know, yoga and stuff. But what if you’ve just been dumped by your wife? Then life may be better expressed as a roulette wheel, at least according to Andrew Gottlieb, whose Gilbert parody, “Drink, Play, F@#k,” out in paperback from Black Cat, follows the fictional character Bob Sullivan on a year-long global trip of boozing, gambling, and, yes, fucking, across three continents.

With the movie “Eat Pray Love,” starring Julia Roberts, opening this weekend, it seemed a good time to ask Gottlieb about the motivations behind his book, the alluring idea of escaping from life, and the enduring popularity of his source material.

Why did you write this book? How much of it is parody and how much is a greater statement on what Gilbert was writing about?

I wrote “Drink, Play, F@#k” because I was mystified by the success of “Eat, Pray, Love,” and I felt that the book, and its Oprah-sanctioned ubiquity, needed to be made fun of. Initially my book was just going to be a broad parody of Elizabeth Gilbert’s story. But, as I began outlining and writing, I realized that a straight parody would bore me (and, presumably, the readers) pretty quickly. I also realized that, while my book is basically just a humorous goof, I also had something to say about the differences and the similarities between the way men and women approach problems. I would say that the “Drink, Play, F@#k” ratio is approximately 72% parody, 27% greater statement, and 1% half-assed get-rich-quick-scheme.

Is this a book that celebrates an alternative male escape, or that mocks the idea that such an escape is valuable or possible?

I have been married for twenty-one years, and I have three children. I would never mock any kind of male escape alternative. However, I’m not above mocking self-obsession, dramatic hand-wringing, and whiny navel-gazing.

[#image: /photos/590953992179605b11ad3a54]

How do you balance the art of parody with writing something that is readable, interesting, and communicates your own voice?

It’s difficult to combine parody with a consistent narrative voice that actually has something to say, and I’m not sure I did it successfully all the time. I tried to mirror the architecture of “Eat, Pray, Love” in a funny way in order to get laughs, and to move my story along. But, as my story naturally moved in its own direction, I found myself breaking away from the material that I had been parodying more and more. (I can’t believe that we’re having such a serious conversation about a book with the word “fuck” in the title.)

What’s your sense of why the “ditch everything/reinvent yourself” story resonates with so many people?

From time to time, everyone daydreams about ditching everything and starting over. I don’t care if you’re a street sweeper from the slums of New Delhi, or if you’re Jay-Z. Obviously, if you’re Jay-Z, you probably have this daydream far less frequently than the Indian dude, but no one is immune from wondering what their life would be like if they could just change everything. Since actually chucking it all and beginning again is pretty unrealistic for most people, reading about others doing it becomes a cathartic second choice. Although, the more I think about it, it’s entirely possible that Jay-Z is a hundred per cent content with his life. Is that guy on a beautiful roll, or what?

What’s been surprising since your book was published, in terms of the “Eat, Pray, Love” phenomenon, and in your own career?

First of all, I’m stunned that “Eat, Pray, Love” seems to be more popular now than ever. I thought that everyone on Planet Earth had already read it a while ago, but copies are still flying off the shelves. I hear that the Pope has it on his Kindle. I’m surprised that the good folks at Warner Brothers wanted to purchase the movie rights to my book. And I am further surprised that they are developing it as a feature vehicle for Steve Carell. If they actually made the movie, however, that would really surprise me. Ultimately, I would say that book itself surprised me more than anything else. I started out intending to write a silly, little parody. That may be how most people perceive it, but, for me, the book I wrote somehow ended up feeling more like a romantic comedy with characters that I actually cared about. That kind of snuck up on me.

(Author photograph: Jamison Stoltz.)