Today is the day to let Turkey join the European union.
Hear ye, hear ye. You are not too cool to stay in on a Friday night. This is because you should watch the television debut of one Mr. Nathan Rabin, a friend of Zulkey.com for many years, on AMC tonight.
Zulkey.com will be going on hiatus until Monday, January 3, but this isn't one of those empty promises some bloggers make where you never see them again. So don't stand me up and leave me here on 1/3/2005 alone like a jerk. If you need some holiday cheer, there is always this and this.
Today's interviewee has been the editor of (and published in) many literary anthologies. He is the author of Demonology, Purple America, The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven, The Ice Storm and Garden State, which won the Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award. Most recently he served as a judge for the National Book Award, which received some extra attention this year.
The Rick Moody Interview: Slightly Less Than Twenty Questions
When you selected the finalists for the National Book Award,
were you aware that selecting five relatively obscure female authors was going
to be the controversy
it was?
I signed a gag order in which I agreed not to discuss our deliberations
or any specific books that we considered. So there's not much I can say here.
In my speech on the evening of the awards, I said that the five finalists
were chosen without regard to "reputation, popularity, age, class, gender,
region, belief, or color," and this was the case. The finalists were
chosen because we loved each of them without reservation. People are free
to second guess all they want, but in the end, it's really simple. We picked
books we loved.
What is the day to day lifestyle for an artist in residence at Yaddo?
Get up, go to breakfast. Breakfast: two of those little boxes of Total
with some raisins on top. Check e-mail quickly. Go back to the studio. Work
in the studio till lunchtime. Get up from the desk, eat lunch, nap for an
hour. Work from 1:30 or 2:00 until 6:30. Every other day, go to the gym from
5:00 to 6:00. At 6:30 go to the dining hall for dinner. At 7:30 make a plan
with others as to how the empty hours between 7:30 and 10:30 are going to
be filled. Execute this plan (usually this involves some horrible movie like
SAW or THE GRUDGE). Go to sleep at 10:30. Repeat.
What was your involvement with the screen adaptation of The
Ice Storm? Was it a positive experience?
I had no involvement, besides playing the role of happy adaptee.
What are some of your favorite films adapted from books?
Kubrick's "Lolita". Huston's "The Dead". I liked "Howard's
End" pretty well. I liked Cronenberg's film of "Naked Lunch".
"The Godfather" is obviously a good film, although I am not terribly
interested in the book. "Apocalypse Now", to the extent that it
is legitimately based on "Heart of Darkness". "Secretary"
wasn't bad, and I liked "Jesus' Son" too. There are many I'm leaving
out here.
You say in an interview with Powells
that you feel uncomfortable discussing your writing career: why is that?
What may look enviable to some often feels like failure to me.
When you toured to promote The Black Veil, did you receive a lot of contact
from people who had suffered from addiction or mental illness? Were you ready
to respond to that or did you not want to seem like a bastion
of self-help?
Actually, I was a little surprised by the outpouring of this kind of response.
In part, the overflow in this direction was due to the way the book was marketed
(as confessional memoir), which wasn't always how I thought about the book
myself. And yet once I got used to it I was really gratified by this kind
of attention. I don't think I was ever a "bastion of self-help,"
but I think that there are always fewer resources than there ought to be for
people struggling with addiction and depression or mental illness. If I can
help anyone who is suffering (or anyone who has someone in their family who
is suffering) I am very willing to do my best.
What other memoirs do you enjoy?
What I don't like is topical single-issue memoirs. In fact, I'm not a regular
reader of the memoir form. I do happen to like Autobiography
of a Face by Lucy Grealy, though, and also Home Before Dark by
Susan Cheever. And I really like "graphic memoirs," like Maus
by Spiegelman or Phoebe Gloeckner's Diary of a Teenage Girl. Dave Eggers's
Staggering Work is of course a book to be admired. And then there is
Michel
de Montaigne. I'll read and reread his reflective essays forever.
Do you think it's appropriate for authors to contact their reviewers,
or respond?
I never would. I don't really read my reviews. I haven't, for example,
read any of the rather controversial
ones about my last book.
Who is your favorite literary critic?
Sven Birkerts, probably. Luc Sante is very insightful. Geoffrey O'Brien. Lorrie
Moore's reviews are great, when she gets around to them. Among the dead, I
certainly admire Alfred Kazin, Roland Barthes, Edgar Allen Poe.
You have lent works in progress to 826
Valencia for the purpose of showing students how much work goes into editing
and rewriting. Are you normally shy about showing people your work in progress
or do you like input?
Usually, I like to show people things when they are near completion, but for
the sake of beginning writers I am willing to have some warts out there.
Are there any songs that you wish you've written?
Lots! Let's see. I wish I had written "My Funny Valentine!" I wish
I had written "God Only Knows," by Brian Wilson. I wish I had written
"Dub Housing," by Pere Ubu and "Shelter From the Storm,"
by Bob Dylan. I wish I had written "The Book of Love," by Stephin
Merritt. I wish I had written a lot of old Irish folk songs. I wish I had
written "Hard Time Killing Floor" by Howlin' Wolf or "Mannish
Boy," by McKinley Morganfield. I wish I had written "Tears of a
Clown." I wish I had written "Across the Universe." I wish
I had written "Anarchy in the U.K." I wish I had written "Accidents
Will Happen," "Unsatisfied," "History of the World, Part
II," I probably could go on and on here.
Do you ever think in your head of possible soundtracks playing under certain
scenes you write?
Not really. I hope that people will do that for themselves. It's the open-ended
quality of the reading experience that makes me excited to do my job.
I admit I know next to nothing about literary grants. Typically, what
comes first when large grants are bestowed, someone who is a promising writer
who might become even better with needed financial support, or a monetary
show of support for somebody who is already an excellent writer? Or are there
other factors involved?
I just have nothing interesting to say about this at all.
What are your favorite literary anthologies?
I don't really read them anymore. I am more drawn to the works of particular
authors. I would like to read all the way through W. G. Sebald or Jim Crace.
I would like to read Lovecraft finally. I would like to read all of Nabokov's
short stories, which I have not done yet. However, I do like the "genre"
anthologies that Michael Chabon has done recently for McSweeney's.
And I like the Norton anthologies, which are useful up to a point. I guess
the Houghton "Best Of. . . "series can be good.
I'm just trying to make good work. Which is what I was trying to do when I started Garden State, seventeen years ago. I think my interests and skills are different now (I'm not 27, unmarried, unfurnished, and drinking too much, like I was when I began that book), but I'm still just trying to do a good job.
What's some of the worst writing advice you ever received?
Prefer the traditional to the offbeat.
What are your favorite literary projects to work on outside of your own
writing?
I don't really have that many beyond my own work.
How does it feel to be the 113th interviewee for Zulkey.com?
Probably not unlike how I would have felt if I were the 112th.