Today is the day to do the hokey pokey.
First and foremost, great friend of Zulkey.com Mike Sacks has finally started his own site after many years of funny on the web. Behold!
Today I chat withthe author of two novels, The Invisible Circus and Look at Me, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and a short story collection, Emerald City. She has published short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper's, Zoetrope and Ploughshares, among others, and her journalism appears frequently in the New York Times Magazine. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was recently a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Her new book, The Keep just came out this summer and has already appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.
The Jennifer Egan Interview: a Little Under Twenty Questions
Your new book has been described as "contemporary Gothic." Does that seem like an accurate description to you? What do you think it means?
I think it's accurate to the extent that The Keep partakes of a gothic atmosphere (remote, spooky, infused with the possibility of the supernatural and also slightly cheesy, or trumped up, in a way that has the potential to be comic) and employs a number of gothic conventions: found manuscripts, texts inside texts, an old castle, twins, allusions to Medieval history.
One of the most praised things about the book is its structure. What are some books that you love that have complex or unusual structures?
The book I think of first is Lawrence Sterne's Tristram Shandy--it's one of the first novels ever written, and it's utterly "meta" in the sense that one of its chief subjects is its own creation. The structure is completely freewheeling and playful, and the characters are utterly winning and human. That's why I'm always a little baffled when people talk about metafiction or postmodernism as "new" concepts in literature. Sterne and Cervantes were doing all of this stuff right from the get-go but we had to wait for Joyce to remind us of what acrobatics the novel is capable of.
Some more contemporary books I've loved for their complex structures: Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion (this is an undervalued book, in my opinion); Nabokov's Pale Fire, DeLillo's Underworld, Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine. It bothers me that these books are all by men but for some reason I can't think of any books by women that fill that particular description.
Time Out New York described your book as an "an artful mindfuck." Is that what you set out for your book to be
No, although I didn't mind the characterization, because I presumed (hopefully not wrongly) that it was said in appreciation. I don't ever think of my readers as people to "fuck with." If anything, my predisposition is toward overearnestness: wanting to explain everything and make sure that everyone understands what I'm trying to do. My first novel, The Invisible Circus, makes this mistake to some degree. As I've kept writing, I've learned to trust the reader more, and let him/her make some of the connections I'm tempted to make for them. It's true that The Keep engages in some switches and surprises, but those are intended to be bracing, eye-opening fun.
The website for the book is interesting-did you have much input on it?
Not a lot, though I was charmed by the concept and did end up rewriting (and writing) some of the text that accompanies it, to keep it roughly in line with the voice of the novel. Being in the last mini-generation of people to grow up without computers (I never used one until college), I still need to be reminded of what a useful selling tool the web can be, but I must say that I found the concept of Stayatthekeep.com to be pretty clever.
Every photo I see of you is great. What's your key to a good author photo?
Actually, I was disappointed in my own performance in the color author photo I had taken. I wasn't ready, I had no outfits planned and at one point I found myself digging through dirty clothes looking for a black T-shirt, and scrabbling through some make-up I'd been given last Christmas in hopes of finding foundation. At 43, that just doesn't cut it; my hair doesn't even look brushed. So I guess my advice would be: prepare for the photo in advance. The photographer can only do so much. I think I was so rattled by that first photo shoot that I've made an extra effort ever since, and those may be the *good* photos you're talking about.
Like Danny in The Keep, do you enjoy going without the trappings of technology or does it freak you out?
Well, I don't have a Blackberry or a Trio, and I'm not ready for one of those, but other than that I'd say I'm pretty plugged in. When I wrote about Danny, I felt like I was writing about a level of engagement with technology that I myself would find unimaginable, but the funny thing is that since finishing the book I've noticed a lot of Danny in me that I wasn't aware of. Particularly that sense of hope and expectation that he brings to telecommunication--his deep longing for voicemail or email to yield some tremendous thrill that amounts to a kind of transcendence. I think I'm always looking for transcendence---maybe we all are. And technology, particularly technology that makes one's own borders seem to disappear, and that gives the impression of infinite reach, can seem to offer many potential portals for transcendence.
If you don't like writing about lives like your own, how do you know enough about others to write about them?
I guess I just look and listen a lot. I read the paper. I eavesdrop on the subway. One of the great things about the tightly packed nature of New York is that you're literally rubbing up against people whose lives are nothing like yours. I've lived in a number of places and travelled a lot. And I continue to do intensive journalistic research pieces, and those thrust me deeply into the midst of lives that are nothing like mine. I also do a fair amount of extrapolation, when it comes down to writing about other people, and sometimes that extrapolation can turn out to be surprisingly correct. For example, in my first novel, The Invisible Circus, I wrote about a girl whose older sister committed suicide as a teenager. I didn't know much about teenage suicide, and thankfully I had no personal experience with it. In the novel, the girls have lost their father some years before the sister's death. And when I finally did look at some statistics on teenage suicides in England, where I was living at the time, I found that a disproportionate number of female teen suicides had lost their fathers in the years before they died.
You visited a prison to do research for The Keep. What surprised you most about your visit?
Two things: the general orderliness and harmony that seemed to prevail, at least compared with some of the reading I'd done--books like The Hot House and Newjack that describe really extreme prison environments with a lot of strife between Corrections Officers and prisoners--and also the freedom of movement the prisoners had, despite the high level of security. This is one of the things that mystified me about the fact that no one questioned James Frey's descriptions of prison life: he made it sound like the prisoners had to stay in their cells all day. But from the reading I've done, and from what I saw, that's way off--not only are prisoners *not* locked in their cells all day (except in a supermax, where there is generally a 23-hour daily lockdown) but they're not *allowed* to stay there: they all have jobs and are required to go to work every morning. Actually, there was one more surprise: this was a prison where blacks and whites were not complete segregated in their living situations; some men were living in group dorms that were racially diverse, and this contradicted my reading somewhat.
What are you doing to research for your next book?
I'm interested in New York in the late 40's, and also in women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II. I've partnered with the Navy Yard on an oral history project to interview women who did this work and are still alive.
Does it come naturally to you to write in a male voice or did you need to do research? Did you ask for input from male readers?
It came pretty naturally. I didn't do research, and while I was especially eager for reactions to the voice from male readers once I had drafts I was showing around, I can't say that I really asked for input. I guess I just used that extrapolation I mentioned earlier.
I remember the article you wrote about the model James King-it was interesting to me because she and I were about the same age (she's only 8 days younger than me) so I was really jealous of her and wanted to hate her. Were you surprised by how her career took off?
James is an unusual person--the sort of person to whom interesting things happen. Her modeling career was already taking off when I wrote about her. That being said, I'm not quite clear on what she's up to nowadays. I'd be curious to know.
Do you enjoy book tours?
Well, I don't hate them the way some do. I used to have a mammoth public speaking phobia, and I got through my first book tour using beta blockers, a heart drug that keeps your body from experiencing symptoms of panic. In the years since then I've left the beta blockers behind and ultimately reached a point where I actually enjoy readings. I like connecting with readers and booksellers, and I feel like my world is slightly expanded each time I do a book tour. That being said, I hate leaving my kids behind and there is finally something empty about the process of selling...I'm most fulfilled when I'm writing, for sure.
Were you and Naomi Wolf the literary equivalent of the prom queens in high school?
She was, I wasn't. I didn't even know I wanted to be a writer in high school--I was thinking I'd become an archeologist. I was not precocious, and I don't think I jumped out to teachers as being a kid with a lot of promise. I'd had a hard time, lots of divorces and strife on the homefront, and I was an anxious, distracted student. I had very little sense of myself, and no real belief in my future. So in a way, it was an unlikely friendship, but we had some great times together.
Do you have a writing schedule or is it an organic when-it-happens thing?
It depends whether I'm writing or editing. Writing I do by hand in a quick, almost blind way. When I'm writing a first draft I try to do about 5-7 pages (usually on a legal pad) a day. Ideally I do this in the morning, when I'm somewhat fresh. When I'm editing, which is the bulk of what writing a book *is* for me, I still try to work in the morning, but I can potentially do that all day, because it's less intense. I like to work in a light, quiet place, but having said that, I've worked in many a cafe and many a subway car. I don't work full time; my kids are little and I love being with them during the week. For the past few months I've been working two full days and two half-days each week.
Do you keep the hand-written drafts of your work to be sold for a high price at auction later in your career or after you've passed on?
Well, I do keep them. If anyone cares to buy them at some future point, I guess that means I will have done something right!
What do you like reading to your kids?
Well, they're only five and three, so we're just getting into "chapter books," as they're called. But they both love Roald Dahl. I've read them Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. I've read my older son the first three Harry Potter books, which he adored and which I liked, and we're now working our way through Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I'm pretty crazy about. Other, earlier favorites are the Lavendar's Blue book of nursery rhymes, which my husband grew up on and whose illlustrations are just wonderful, and Greek myths, and Aesop's Fables.
Do you go back to the Midwest much? What do you do when you come here?
I wish I got there more. I love Chicago, it has this mythical feeling for me because I spent my early childhood there. Because I'm always there for a particular reason--either a wedding or a book reading, usually--I don't have time to do the things I'd like to do, which are: go to the Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry; eat dinner in Greek Town, take a run along the lake, have a drink at the top of the John Hancock building, and visit all my old addresses.
How does it feel to be the 156th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Well, perhaps not quite as cool as being number 20, but a lot cooler than being # 859.
More interviews here if you're interest!