I never wrote anything beyond a few notes on my phone while I was home . . . When it was all so close, I felt like I couldn’t see any of it properly. I found it much more generative to recall the settings from a distance, through memory.
As often happens when you have nothing left to lose, everything just clicked, the voice she had been honing throughout her artistic career was now razor-sharp, as was her sense of humor, righteous indignation, and impatience with classical, “proper” style . . .
I want to take things seriously, because these are serious things I’m writing about, but life is so funny, so ridiculous, and so bizarre—and the more bizarre I made the book, the more the book looked like real life.
I’m not too interested in forms that don’t hold onto some sense of wildness, even if just under pressure.
I think part of giving female characters their full humanity on the page includes letting them be ugly and dangerous and selfish in their behavior, wherever it might stem from.
I want to have hope, but I’m also suspicious of all hopeful things. [Laughs.]
This world we live in is terribly brutal to animals, to humans, to beings of all kinds, isn’t it? Why pussy foot around?
“Surveillance and espionage are part of everyday lives now.”
People are bothered by all of this, and I admit I am both irritated and amused by it. I think I like the bother, the trouble. It makes us ask — what is a novel?
Death and So Forth – Gordon Lish
These might be old tricks (for Lish), but they are still good tricks.