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Stewart O'Nan
A: Yeah, I still write stories whenever they come up. I'll even pop one out when I'm working on a novel, and of course Everyday People is a novel-in-stories. I've got another collection's worth of published ones together, but it will probably wait till I don't have a novel ready to go.
A: The ghost story is about loss and desire, and the desire for immortality as well. We all die, we all fear being lost and forgotten, and we all hope, in some way, in some form, to remain here.
A: We've been going to games together for a while, and last year when they made their charge we were e-mailing back and forth regularly after every game, breaking down the action. Some editors in New York had been after me for a couple years to do a Sox book, and because hopes were so high for the team this spring (and because I'd finished my novel), my agent asked if I'd be interested in finally writing it. I said I'd only do it if I could do it with Steve. Steve was busy (he's always busy—the guy's got more of a drive to write than anyone I've ever met) but said he'd see what he could contribute as the season went along. And it's worked out nicely—been an eventful, winning summer. But, man, have I got a lot more respect for the team's beat writers.
A: The police and jury's assumption of the kids' guilt—and of course Peter Straub's involvement.
A: My wife says I only write the books so I can do the research, and that's partly true. Being compulsive, I love being able to indulge my curiosity to the fullest and beyond. Plus, when you write of settings and subjects beyond your intimate knowledge, I think you have to admit your ignorance and then go and try to learn as much as you can, taking in primary and secondary sources and really thinking about what kind of story you're doing and what's been done in that vein before.
A: For A Prayer I needed an intimate narrator capable of fairly hiding things from the reader. So I knew it had to be a first- or second-person, because a third- who's unreliable is kind of cheating. I tried the first, and it was too close. I was reading Robert O'Connor's Buffalo Soldiers, written in the second person, and noticed how the voice scourged its owner, tapping him on the shoulder whenever he's doing wrong, like a conscience or superego. It's the same use of the second as in Jay McInerney's Bright Lights Big City, or Charles Johnson's story "Moving Pictures." And I thought: what effect would that scourging, nagging, blaming voice have if it were inside a man doing everything he could to prevent a terrible, unavoidable catastrophe? Especially a man who loves his town and feels responsible for everything and everyone. And as I wrote further into the story, I noticed that the voice would veer close to Jacob and then stand apart from him, accusing, and that it worked to highlight that gothic split in him of the strange and troubled private side and the solid and responsible public side. The hidden vs. the seen. And it also works as that ceaseless voice in the head of a mad person, the voice that won't leave him alone.
A: No, there wasn't much resistance to answering questions or telling personal stories about the fire because the silence had already been broken in the early '90s when there was a flurry of newspaper reports about the mysterious dead girl. Still, it was hard for many people to talk, just in an interview setting, because their memories are still so strong. It's a day many of the survivors have never forgotten, the way people in downtown New York will always be shaken by their memories of 9/11. It was a massive tragedy that was intensely personal, changing families and neighborhoods and towns forever.
A: I think for writers the story is still a source of excitement and discovery, and as long as that's true, we'll have great short story collections, like last year's Stuart Dybek's I Sailed With Magellan. And the slicks still publish shorts, and the literary magazines. Maybe they're not getting the attention they did in the '80s, with Raymond Carver, etc., but folks are still out there working away at them.
A: I seem to work in two basic sizes: around 200 manuscript pages (Snow Angels, Speed Queen, Prayer, The Night Country) or around 500 manuscript pages (The Names of the Dead, A World Away, Circus Fire, Wish You Were Here). But usually the size is a natural consequence of the material and my choice of container and organization. Typically a first- or second-person book with a unified time scheme (Speed Queen, Prayer) is going to be shorter than a third-person book trying to contain either a cross-cut time scheme (The Names of the Dead) or a mutliple third-person with heavy memory content (Wish You Were Here).
A: The Sox should clinch their playoff spot in about fifteen minutes, and I'll drink some champagne. Only eight teams make the playoffs, and we've got Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez, so hey, you never know. Whether they win it all or not, it's been a great summer at Fenway, and will be next year
too.
Go Sox!
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