Published: April 25, 2013 - The New York Times
During a dark moment in his early 30s, the author of “The Corrections” and, most recently, “Farther Away: Essays” took solace from the self-help book “The Dance of Anger.”
I loved Rachel Kushner’s “Flamethrowers.” I also have to mention Mario Vargas Llosa’s “War of the End of the World” and Milan Kundera’s “Unbearable Lightness of Being.”
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
The book creates the experience. If I’m loving something, I suddenly discover large chunks of reading time that I wasn’t aware of having. But I will say there’s nothing like being stuck in a middle seat on a long flight that begins with a two-hour delay. In a situation like that, a few years ago, I’d brought along a new novel that critics were wild about and that I was certain I would enjoy. It was so boring and dead that after 50 pages I just closed it and stared at the seat-back tray and suffered, resenting the author and psychoanalyzing the critics. Conversely, on an even worse pair of flights, from Zagreb to New York by way of two London airports, I’d carefully saved “The Custom of the Country,” and it kept me engrossed the entire way. I finished it in the taxi line at J.F.K., feeling bottomlessly grateful to Edith Wharton.
What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?
A copy of “Libra,” with a nice inscription, that Don DeLillo sent me in 1989. I must have asked my publisher to send him a finished copy of my first novel; there’s no way to explain the gift otherwise. But after spending my 20s working in near-total isolation and revering DeLillo from afar, I couldn’t believe that I had something signed to me in his own human hand. At some level, I still can’t believe it.
The hardest or least enjoyable part?
The years of doubting whether I actually have another story to tell.
Did you grow up with a lot of books? What are your memories of being read to as a child?
I grew up going to the public library every week and coming home with stacks of books — my parents weren’t readers, didn’t have time to be. But my father read books to me every weeknight evening he was home. My mother never read to me, even when he was away on business. I wonder if she recognized that reading was the primary private thing that he and I had together.
Do you have a favorite childhood literary character or hero?
As with a lot of writers of my generation, it’s “Harriet the Spy.” My recollection is that her creator, Louise Fitzhugh, died in her 40s. Did she have any idea how many young people decided to be writers after reading her two books about Harriet? I hope she had at least an inkling.
If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know?
I wish I could have been present when Kafka read “The Metamorphosis” aloud to his friends, who couldn’t stop laughing. The humor is still there in the text, but I would love to know what he did with his voice.
If you could meet any character from literature, who would it be?
One of Shakespeare’s comic heroines, probably Rosalind, although trying to talk to her in iambic pentameter would be a strain.
What are you planning to read next?
For the past 20 years or so I’ve been planning to read the final four volumes of “In Search of Lost Time” next.
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