Andrew Roe

“I don’t know very much,” [Roth] says about how he begins a novel. “I write my way into my knowledge. Then, if I’m lucky, I get a break. That’s why it’s so important to get started. Because however awful starting is — and it is absolutely awful — when you get into it, when you’ve got 10 pages, which may take two weeks, then you can begin to build.”

Philip Roth, from a recent L.A. Times interview.

I really like that “I write my way into my knowledge” line.

But with a novel, that can be a scary approach (maybe not so scary if you’re Philip Roth).

“[Fiction] doesn’t have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure that’s taken in reading something that’s durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself. Something that throws off these sparks—a persistent and steady glow, however dim.”

Raymond Carver, from a 1983 Paris Review interview (quoted in “A Day in the Life of Hannah Tinti,” which is definitely worth a read).

Literary Death Match (LDM) is coming back to San Diego on Tuesday, October 12 — and I’m on the bill this time.

I’ll be reading along with Jim Ruland, Justin Hudnall and more.

Details here.

Now I just have to figure out which story to read…

Back in July, Jim Ruland interviewed me for his Vermin on the Mount blog. He asked about the most unusual experience I’ve ever had at a reading.

Here’s what I had to say…

“Many years ago I saw William Vollmann read at the Booksmith in San Francisco. He walked into the store, stood at the lectern, took a sip of water, and pulled out a gun. Three or four times throughout the reading, he picked up the gun, aimed it at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger. The gun, of course, wasn’t real; it was a cap gun, but it was fucking loud, and I was sitting in the first row. My ears were still ringing the next morning. Vollmann was weird and edgy and intense. He wore a white t-shirt and stalkeresque windbreaker. His glasses were very large. In The Catcher in the Rye, doesn’t Holden say something about how wouldn’t it be great if you read a book and could then call the writer on the phone and become pals? I wouldn’t want to call William Vollmann.“