I call the book a cross between Yellow Submarine<\/em> and Being John Malkovich<\/em> with a sprinkling of 33 1\/3<\/em> style fun facts scattered throughout. It’s a zany, cross-genre story grounded in the song by song world of the album but ultimately its own separate thing. If you dig it, the credit goes to Benji as the muse. If you hate it, blame me and I apologize for tainting the album. Personally I think they go well together regardless of whether you view it as a novelization of a record or a soundtrack to a book. But of course I’m biased :).<\/p>\n I’ll kick off a similar chapter by chapter commentary<\/a> series of blog posts like I did for Timely Persuasion<\/em><\/a> in the near future. For now, check out the ebook at your favorite store<\/a>.<\/p>\n More soon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been awhile but we’re back with style… Announcing the new novel by JL Civi: L Extreme! Readers of this blog know I’ve been a huge fan of Benji Hughes for years. Somewhere along the line I decided to write a novel based on his album\u00a0A Love Extreme. For a reason I can’t fully recall…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,22],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-writing","tag-benji-hughes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfx3-xB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3429,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/additions-to-the-lx-hughesniverse\/","url_meta":{"origin":2083,"position":0},"title":"Additions to the LX Hughesniverse","author":"LBDG","date":"February 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"L Extreme is billed as a novelization of the album A Love Extreme by Benji Hughes, though it actually pulls from his entire catalog through early 2021. January 31, 2025 marked the release of three new Benji Hughes jams via the soundtrack to the film Home Free. Since I spent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Screenshot-2025-07-17-at-10.35.15-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Screenshot-2025-07-17-at-10.35.15-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Screenshot-2025-07-17-at-10.35.15-PM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2339,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lx-commentary-13c-girl-in-the-tower-part-iii\/","url_meta":{"origin":2083,"position":1},"title":"LX Commentary #13c: Girl In The Tower (Part III)","author":"LBDG","date":"September 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's pick up where we left off with the doors. SAL + MON = Salmon. The CD version of the album Songs in the Key of Animals assigns these names to each disc. The LP version subtitles the sides. L Extreme the novel pays tribute with little signs on two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/SalMonSITKOA-279x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2381,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lx-commentary-15-so-well\/","url_meta":{"origin":2083,"position":2},"title":"LX Commentary #15: So Well","author":"LBDG","date":"October 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The setup for this chapter came to me with the clarity of a message from my future self: Benji & L, on a date at a hardware store, chaperoned by Frank, coveting an unidentified handcrafted object for mysterious reasons. \"You've got it made, because you're made so well.\" Early on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-28-at-9.55.03-PM-300x180.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2396,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lx-commentary-16-the-mummy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2083,"position":3},"title":"LX Commentary #16: The Mummy","author":"LBDG","date":"October 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my favorite things about Chuck Klosterman\u2014besides this coincidence\u2014is his glowing judgment of an album by its cover review of\u00a0A Love Extreme for Esquire. One of my favorite parts of his novel\u00a0The Visible Man\u00a0is a scene where he's clearly talking about a certain television show, but dances around the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Headshot of Thurston Moore from the film Slow Century; headshot of Benji Hughes from the Appetizer EP.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Screen-Shot-2021-10-04-at-11.47.46-PM-156x300.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2088,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lx-origin-story-part-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":2083,"position":4},"title":"LX Origin Story, Part I","author":"LBDG","date":"April 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Before I dive into chapter by chapter, song by song commentary for L Extreme I wanted to provide a little background on how this came to be. Let's start at the beginning... July 2009: I purchased the special music issue of The Believer magazine at Skylight Books in LA. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Believer Issue 64, July\/Aug 2009","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/200907.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2123,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lx-chapter-commentary-3-you-stood-me-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":2083,"position":5},"title":"LX Chapter Commentary #3: You Stood Me Up","author":"LBDG","date":"May 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"A dream, a frame story, and a flashback walk into a novel based on lyrics from a double album by Benji Hughes\u00a0who also stars as the protagonist.Kidding aside, the thrill of working on L Extreme was the kitchen-sink zaniness of the structure. As I began to identify the throughline of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Behind the Scenes"","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Unknown.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2969,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/2969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"L](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/LX-Space-Painting-Cover-FINAL.jpg?resize=188%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Readers of this blog know I’ve been a huge fan of Benji Hughes<\/a> for years. Somewhere along the line I decided to write a novel based on his album\u00a0A Love Extreme<\/em>. For a reason I can’t fully recall or explain I decided to make a fictionalized version of Benji the protagonist. And somewhere much later down the line he gave me permission to release it, did the cover art, and wrote an afterword!<\/p>\n