So ask away.
Yeah.
You [INAUDIBLE] your characters, like
that was awesome [INAUDIBLE] the language,
the things that they're going to be very, very visceral
are [INAUDIBLE] I don't know if he was there.
And we're going to be talking a little bit about how
you get into the process take to get inside that
just the [INAUDIBLE].
Well, I mean, I was talking about this a little bit
today in the Q & A. They're all me.
I mean, that's what's so scary.
Even though I would just like to go on record as saying,
I'm not a neo-Nazi.
I mean they all have--
for example, just at the beginning in the first scene,
if I draw on or drew on my most anxious, alienated,
terrifying moment walking down the streets of New York City,
and-- also there's a kind of research,
which is fun, which is walking through Times Square,
imagining I'm this guy, how would he be responding?
I mean, what I also said is that for me it
has more to do with language than anything else.
The minute I get their language I can figure out who they are.
And the phrase that I read which is
"a hybrid species born to survive on dog piss and carbon
monoxide."
The minute I got that, I knew who the guy was,
because I knew he had a kind of intelligence that
wasn't-- he's not a dumb guy.
And he's verbally inventive, and responsive, and aware.
But also I just always am using little pieces of my own life
and just giving it to these characters.
And also it's scary.
I mean, at some point in the book--
Vincent's a nice guy.
But at some point in the book, cousin Raymond shows up.
Who's the heavy.
And that was the scariest character
to write only because it was the most fun.
And I just went crazy, right?
At the end of the day of writing,
I just pretty much had to take a nap, because I
was so frightened of myself.
But it's getting in touch with those inner parts of yourself
that you really don't want anything to do with.
And Bonnie was easy.
I mean, Bonnie-- part of it is written
from Bonnie's point of view.
And every maternal anxiety I ever had just got
funneled into Bonnie.
And the kid-- the kid-- well for example, I mean,
the kid there's a scene later in the book when the kid writes
a paper about the possibility-- he has to write a paper--
he chooses to write a paper about Hitler.
And he writes a paper about the possibility
that Hitler was gay.
And he's accused by his extremely pissy teacher
and principal of being homophobic, which he wasn't.
And when I wrote it, I knew that what I was doing
and the pleasure of writing it was
that every stupid misreading review, the horror of being
misread and misunderstood, I just gave it to the kid
at that moment.
Plus, I mean one of the pleasures
of being a writer, the teachers who
particularly tortured the kid--
my son's teachers, several of them
make cameo appearances in the book.
I mean, that's the fun part.
Who wants to write about myself?
Anything else?
Yeah.
This work [INAUDIBLE] is informed
as one of the political social perspective.
How much of that do you consciously bring in?
It's clear [INAUDIBLE] how do you avoid that [INAUDIBLE]
Well, you can just try.
But again, if you're writing about the world,
that's what you're writing about.
I mean, for one thing, when I started
thinking about neo-Nazis, there was no way
to write about them without writing about social class.
I mean because it seemed to me, the more I read
and the more I thought, the more it
seemed to me to have to do about with that than anything else.
So once I knew that--
And then I realize--
I never know-- it's not like I ever
have an idea when I start out.
I have characters, and I'm just trying to get into their heads.
But once I knew that I had this Human Rights
Foundation, and Bonnie, and so forth,
I knew that what I was writing about
was the desire to be a good person, and to do good,
and what that meant.
And then once I had the kids watching TV
and I had this talk show that probably, obviously,
will become more important as the novel goes on,
I knew that I was writing about the media.
And also everyone in the novel is just like scamming everybody
else a mile a minute in the way that people are actually doing.
So that seemed to me just part of writing
about the way we all live now without talking
about the way we live now.
Is that it?
Yeah, John.
[INAUDIBLE]
Oh, I know, I was on the subway in New York.
And I saw these two skinheads on the subway, kids.
And they looked terrified.
I mean, they really did look like they'd
been dropped in from Mars.
And they're on the subway.
I mean as if they got off the wrong bus or something.
And I became incredibly interested in who they were.
But I had a really, really strange experience
after I'd finished the book.
I guess, I read from-- one of the first times
I read from it was, last summer it's [INAUDIBLE]..
And the poet, Alan Shapiro, who some of you may know,
told me that his sister had worked for the Wiesenthal
Foundation.
And a neo-Nazi had turned himself
into the Wiesenthal Foundation.
I knew that, but I didn't know that it's his sister.
And that she was a single mother with two kids.
And she had become romantically involved with the guy,
the way my character-- and he essentially
told me my whole novel having happened to his sister.
And neither of us could barely breathe while he was--
I mean that happens, life imitates art and the other way.
I mean after the fact.
And you think you're on the right track
when something like that happens.
I did research, so I mean this frightening thing,
you google Aryan and you get like 150,000 websites.
It's terrifying what's going.
We all lead-- many of us lead sheltered lives.
But if you just look at what's out there,
it really makes your blood run cold.
Yeah.
Do you tend to overwrite your characters, [INAUDIBLE]
searching for them, do you maybe write
much more about them than what [INAUDIBLE] novel [INAUDIBLE]??
Yeah, I'm always cutting.
I'm cutting way back.
And it's again, like why does the reader need to know that?
I just want to put exactly as much as someone
might need to know to make the character make sense or be
coherent.
I read somewhere that someone, I can't remember who it was said,
I know everything about my characters.
I know like how many spoonfuls of sugar
they put in their coffee.
And I think if they're not going to drink coffee in the novel,
why do you have to know all that?
So I try to keep it spare.
Yeah
[INAUDIBLE] said earlier today that you really
try to capture the way your head sounds,
like your inner thoughts.
And you do that really well.
So I'm wondering-- I know you said,
you start writing [INAUDIBLE] So I'm
wondering that is your writing maybe just to start off
more formal and then you have to work to almost
make it more colloquial, as you are revising,
is that part of how you revise it to make it [INAUDIBLE]
Yeah, well but the thing is-- but again, it's language.
If I'm going for the exact word that I think that character
would use about something, it does
become more colloquial but at the same time,
it becomes more energized.
I mean the more obviously the more precise the word choice,
the more energized the language, the more energized the sounds.
So yeah.
I wouldn't say it starts off more formal,
but it's vaguer in earlier drafts.
I'm more abstract and more boring.
Yeah, Jonathan.
Got a craft question.
This is a present tense novel.
I just happened to like your story collection [INAUDIBLE]
looking to it looks like they're all present tense.
Do you want to talk about use of present tense
versus the past tense?
I don't really like the present tense,
even though I use it all the time.
I find it irritating when other people do.
But I do it only because it's easier, it's cinematic.
That's the same reason I don't like it.
When I write in the present tense,
it's as if I can actually see the scene unrolling
before my eyes.
So it becomes much easier to sort of transcribe it.
And I've tried with several things
to translate it back into the past
just because I would like it better, but it doesn't work.
Earlier in your career [INAUDIBLE] in the past,
did you not?
Yeah, and the book I'm working on now
is in the past tense, which may be one of the reasons
it's so hard.
I don't know.
But you do whatever's easier for you, it seems to me.
Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE]
The very last draft or the very last draft, what I do
is I just have the manuscript.
And I do this thing where I just open it at random.
And I just read a sentence.
And I'll just change that sentence.
So I've completely lost any sense of what the whole is,
but I'm just working on it still sentence by sentence.
And I'll start anywhere, because the thing is,
the big temptation, and you see it in books
all the time, is the endless revision of the first chapter
and then the rest is like nowhere.
So to avoid that--
now it's one way to do it.
I'll just open it 3/4 of the way through and start rewriting.
And I'm very--
I'll just fuss with that last comma forever.
Anything else?
Thank you.