There is only one subject: failure.
—John Hawkes
As a writer, did you encounter any difficulty in the early going?
Did you ever feel like throwing in the proverbial towel?
What kept you going?
What keeps you going now?
Are you sure?
Did you do that standard thing of wallpapering your studio apartment with rejection slips?
You lived in New York during your twenties?
Your entire twenties?
Just south of Harlem?
What was that like?
It was affordable then?
Was Brooklyn happening yet?
Anything in particular gained from that experience?
For instance, did it help you find an agent?
A publisher?
Do young writers still need to move to New York—seems like such an old-fashioned idea in the internet age, don’t you think?
Bury it beneath Schwab’s Pharmacy?
Single most significant challenge you have had to overcome?
The medication has been helpful, then?
You’re sure you’re not overmedicating, though?
Do you agree that it tends to push you toward very high highs and very low lows?
Obviously, you’ve flirted with ideation in that direction, but how seriously? That’s what I’m trying to get you to open up about.
Do you concur with Camus’s observation that the only serious question is whether to commit suicide?
Was there any problem getting your first book published?
Was it as easy for you as it seems?
Do you ever think of removing your three novels from print now that you’re so anti-novel?
Do you ever think of giving away copyright to all of your books now that you’re so anti-copyright?
Was that your phone or mine that just buzzed?
Will you excuse me? I have to take this.
The cover on your second novel—good god. Did you have no say in the matter?
Are you still with them?
Are you capable of throwing a fit?
What do you imagine that might tell us about how deeply unhappy you really are?
Ever played good cop/bad cop with your agent vis-à-vis the publisher?
What was it that drove you to do that?
I’m wondering if that was conscious on your part—any sense?
Your alter ego protagonists in your three “novels”—all pretty much the same character, wouldn’t you say?
They’re all trying to work out their deepest problems through literature, always referring to some passage or another—remind you of anyone you know?
What strike you as your chief character defects?
Any character strengths?
None at all? Oh, please.
It can’t be all that dire, can it?
Rhetorical question, I suppose, but are you more energized—in general—by other people (in which case you’re an extrovert) or your own company (in which case you’re an introvert)?
Have you been completely ensconced in your own little cubbyhole during covid?
Any other particular flaws that leap to mind?
What’s the worst thing anyone’s ever said to you?
That’s awful, but I’ve heard worse, haven’t you?
Embarrassing?
You felt embarrassed?
In 2014, I asked you what you meant by “necessary” work; you mentioned “cultural dread.” Seven years later, can you build on that descriptor?
How has your most recent book been received?
In your view, what underlies the antagonism?
Can you unpack the pack mentality, I guess?
What did he call you—“labile”?
Did he find it guilty of sentimentality?
What is sentimentality, anyway?
Isn’t that what is otherwise known as “feeling shit”?
So you can’t communicate your essence fully, but, then, hey, who can?
Kind of comes with the territory, doesn’t it?
That’s an impossibly abstract and high bar, isn’t it?
Can you provide at least a few examples?
Not to go all Last Tango in Halifax on you, but what do you imagine your main creative focus will be for you once you start receiving Social Security?
Any literary or cinematic magic left in your bag of tricks?
And the potential “greatness” of it would lie entirely in how you write it, would it not?
Will that happen?
Just as a human being, what is your goal over, say, the next decade?
Because, I agree—do we need more than the fingers of two hands to enumerate all the writers who have written a great book after age seventy-five?
In the short term, I agree; who knows?
Are you, in essence, a ghost?