Interview in Hong Kong newspaper — South China Post
1. Describe your book in 20 words or fewer.
Like Mark Twain on acid, if Mark Twain (on acid) was 70% less funny and articulate and was raised on the South Side of Chicago and had a bad toothache that was preventing his stories from really cohering asthetically.
2. What are you reading now?
A wonderful series of questions prepared by The South China Post. It’s poignant, funny, moving - one of the best list of questions I’ve ever read. I’m recommending that all my friends attempt this particular list of questions and they in turn are recommending it to all of their friends, and soon I expect all of Upstate New York will be answering these ten questions.
3. If you could have a one-to-one with any writer in history, who would it be and why?
Well, I guess I’d have to ask for a definition of “one-to-one.” If it involved fighting, then it would definitely not be Muhammed Ali, author of The Greatest. If, on the other hand, it did involve fighting, I would choose to have my “one-to-one” with Edward “Shorty” Grimaldi, author of What It’s Like to Weigh Forty Pounds and Be Three Feet Tall.
4. Name three buzz words you hate.
I hate the buzz word “buzz word.” I also don’t like the buzz word “hate.” Even the word “you” grates on my nerves. I’m also not crazy about “Hagensack’s Pre-Nebular Continuum Glaze” (used by members of the Syracuse, New York, underworld to describe the feeling of running with untied shoelaces through a series of parking lot puddles) or “Clintonize,” used to describe the phenomena of being extremely disappointing to a large group of formerly hopeful liberals.
5. Which living author do you most admire and why?
Leo Tolstoy. I mean, just to live to be nearly two hundred years old is a real accomplishment, let alone having a long series of intimate relationships with your serf girls that whole time. And the books! I love his Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The only thing I resent is that he never returns my calls. Not that I blame him...I mean, he’s LEO TOLSTOY. And I’m sure he’s tired, being 200 and all. But I will make this promise: when I’m 200, no matter how many serf girls I’m involved with, I will do my very best to return calls from younger writers.
6. Which character in a book would you most like to be?
I would like to be Ned Conroy, in The Passionate Embrace of Passion. There’s something appealing to me about the idea of having “perfectly chiseled features” and “a near horselike endowment.” Also, there’s that beautiful section where Ned enters the Harvest Festival and “women fainted at his beauty...and men cringed to see their women fainting, and children cried to see their fathers cringing, and even the decorations on the walls seemed to bow down before him, and then Mr. Gabe, the town billionaire, came up and gave Ned one million dollars in cash.” It’s probably just a peculiarity of mine, but something about that description intrigues me somehow, and makes me wonder what it would be like to be Ned.
7. Which character in a book would you most like to sleep with and why?
Are you crazy? My wife, of course. I must now go and write a book with my wife in it, so that I may sleep with her, according to the terms and conditions implied by Question 7.
8. Which book do you wish you'd written?
I wish I had written Dead Souls, by Gogol. This is perhaps the greatest comedic novel of all time. So I wish I had written it. Because then I would be the author of the greatest comedic novel of all time, and maybe Tolstoy would return my calls. On the other hand, If I had written it, since it was written in Russian, there would probably be a few mistakes in it, as I don’t speak any Russian except the word for “thank you.” So, if I had written it, I would probably have had to change the title to, you know, Thank You! And that famous opening passage, in which a couple of townspeople observe Chichikov’s carriage (and which becomes a reflection on Russian ennui, and a comic presaging of the novel’s intentions) would have to be modified somewhat, to show two Russian men thanking one another over and over while a guy in a carriage goes by shouting "Thank you!"
9. What was the last book you couldn't finish?
I foolishly attempted to read Engelston’s Complete Enumeration of Every Nosehair in North America. I mean, it was good (the man has really done his research) but I was reading it in a stuffy room, and somewhere in the section entitled “Western North Dakota, Males, Age 25-30" I started to nod off. Apologies to Mr. Engelston! But the South China Post asked, and I had to be honest.
10. What do you do when you have writer's block?
Usually I retreat to the little room I’ve redesigned as a ballet student and do the pas de deux from Giselle. There’s something about the “defamiliarizing” effect of squeezing my 180-pound frame into a tiny “tutu” and then dashing and leaping awkwardly around our former laundry room that sort of “frees me up.”
