It's newsworthy, now, that writers and readers alike covet the author interview. The Paris Review is opening up its celebrated archive! What's less clear is why we care. Why do we so badly want to hear what authors have to say? Someone famous once said, If you want to know what I think, read my books. Fair enough. But we also want direct access to your head. If there were one of those machines with wires and tubes that gave us control of your brain, we'd use it. Without restraint!
[caption id="attachment_1659" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Whitehead and Gottlieb: Live Literary Archaeology"]
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This weekend, we squeezed into the minimalist tent at the Jones Theater for a reading by Colson Whitehead, who then willingly submitted to the incisive queries of interviewer/novelist Eli Gottlieb. Anyone who was there knows there was a collective uplift in the air, and it wasn't just the hilarity onstage. It was something else. It was the opportunity to hear two well-spoken writers talk about the craft, but also to hear between the lines an at-times harrowing survival story. For those who couldn't make it, here are a few items in the inventory:
- Colson was not particularly encouraged--ever--to pursue his art, not by family, not by that iconic English Teacher a lot of us had in elementary ("Keep writing! You will go far!"), not by his first agent (unceremoniously dumped), and not by the admissions committee for creative writing classes at Harvard.
- Had he not been in Denver for the weekend, he would have been forced to spend his Saturday the usual way--contemplating the disastrous wreckage of his life. (Hear, hear.)
- Upon giving a particularly blunt and unfavorable review to one of the great literary lions of our time, Colson was spat upon by said lion at a fundraising party. (!)
- James Wood.
- After working off tail writing a sprawling novel on the travails of a Gary Colemanesque child TV star, Whitehead received a vote of no confidence from New York publishing. You won't find that one on Amazon.
- Hair hasn't always been Colson's friend. (This is unofficial, taken from a fictional account of hair woes, but it sounded too true to be invented.)
Maybe that's what we all wanted to hear--that even for someone as talented and celebrated as Colson Whitehead, it's not always easy, because we feel, deep down, that it's impossibly hard. Especially the hair. Ultimately, the Colson Whitehead story can be read no other way than as a success story, one that will no doubt continue to get better. Bring on the vicarious bump to our collective stores of morale!
Thanks to all who joined in the party; there will no doubt be more bloggin to come.
--aed
