The Write Stuff
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Holden Caulfield had it right. The test of a great book, he said in The Catcher in the Rye, was whether, once you finished it, you wished the author were a great friend you could call up at home. I remembered Caulfield's insight when we convened a roundtable of writers to come to NEWSWEEK. The conversation was honest, and a persistent theme emerged: that for all the frustrations of writing, the uncertain future of publishing, and the terror of rejection by readers and critics, our authors couldn't imagine doing anything else. Ever.
Because they are all inveterate (and deft) storytellers, even when they're just talking shop. Elizabeth Strout revealed that she hides pages of her manuscripts in her home so she can come across them by surprise—and thus see them with a fresh eye. Susan Orlean said the first book she bought on Kindle was by…Susan Orlean. Robert Caro reminded us how he was told, repeatedly, that a book on Robert Moses wouldn't sell. (It did, and it won a Pulitzer.) Want to know more? Read on. And yes, we think you'll want to call everyone up.
Jon Meacham: Mr. Block, why do you do what you do?
LAWRENCE BLOCK: I don't know. I started when I was too young to know better, actually, and before very long was qualified for nothing else. I don't know that there's any better answer than that. I can't think of any way I'd prefer to have spent the past 50 years. I've reached a point now where I'm slowing down and thinking that there may not be more novels. It's been enough years and enough books so that anything I had to say to the world I've long since said and probably repeated myself enough times to be done with it. But it's interesting to contemplate not doing it anymore.
You say novels. Would there be something else?
BLOCK: Well, I'll probably write one way or another. The current book is a memoir, which I never thought I would do. I never felt temperamentally inclined to write anything about myself. And I suspect I'll still do short stories when something comes to me. But the heavy lifting of the novel I may not feel like doing.
ELIZABETH STROUT: It's just a compulsion. It's absolute madness in a way, I think. The few times that I contemplate not doing it, it's almost like there's a flavor that leaves ordinary life. But it's never lasted more than a couple days and probably only three times that I remember that I thought, I won't do this anymore.
Was one of the three times ever in the middle of writing?
STROUT: No, it was in the middle of not getting any responses from anybody in the entire publishing world.
SUSAN ORLEAN: I wish I could say something really original like I was planning to be a professional athlete and the opportunity to be a writer came up. It's all I have ever thought of doing. It was observing, telling stories, performing this magic trick of being the conduit for experiences for other people. It's interesting because there was a point when the idea of being somebody writing for print started to have the slight tinge of antiquarian charm.
Become a Fan of Jon Meacham
It's turned into a full-blown rash. [laughter]
ROBERT CARO: You know, what I first liked about writing was finding out. My first story in sixth grade was "Hank the Moose," which was basically a biography of a moose. It was too long. It was in three volumes. [Laughter] I always wanted to find out, to explain, to find out how things work. One of the things about Hemingway was they asked him about his basic motivations and he said he wanted to find out how fly-fishing worked, how bull-fighting worked. I always felt I had that in myself.
KURT ANDERSEN: One thing I'll say about all these answers is there's too much pure pleasure. It sounds like it's just all fun. It's true, but I just want, for the record, to tell all of you who aren't writers who are out there reading this to know it's also...
STROUT: Hell.
ANDERSEN: Yeah.
Discuss