This wonderful four-volume set pulls together dozens of great interviews with some of the finest writers in the English-speaking world. Long and free-flowing, these conversations, published over the past 55 years, are a rarity in the world of journalism these days, where everything is becoming quick and glib and snappy.
And the back stories are as interesting as the interviews themselves. In 1968, for instance, when Ted Berrigan and Aram Saroyan showed up to interview Jack Kerouac, Kerouac's wife threw them out of the house. "I kept talking in what I hoped was a civilized, reasonable, calming and friendly tone," Berrigan writes, and finally Mrs. Kerouac allowed them in for 20 minutes "on the condition that there be no drinking." (Judging by the length of the interview, they stayed much longer, though whether alcohol was involved I cannot say.)
Graham Greene, James Thurber, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, T.S. Eliot, E.B. White, Maya Angelou and a host of others talk thoughtfully and at length about how they write, and why, and what their influences are, and what they hope to achieve. I'd always heard that Truman Capote would not write with yellow roses in the room. And now I know why.
LAURIE HERTZEL
