Slog tipper Nick sent a link to this Salon story, about why novelists hate being interviewed. Tom Leclair is through with interviewing authors:
I no longer do interviews. Too many problems. The tape broke when Stanley Elkin was talking. I got lost trying to find Joseph McElroy’s house in rural New Hampshire. DeLillo gave a thoughtful and mysterious interview, but the Paris Review decided that, after only six novels, he wasn’t sufficiently famous. William Gass took a year to rewrite the transcript. William Gaddis refused to edit the transcript. After I’d flown from Ohio to New York, Toni Morrison’s secretary said I was not on her schedule and let me in only after I produced a letter promising the interview on that date at that time. I loved the novelists’ unreliable narrators, but not the novelists who proved unreliable.
I dislike most author interviews for another reason: They’re usually boring. The author, who would rather be doing anything else at that moment in time, only wants to sell his or her book. They’re not interested in talking about anything especially juicy or illuminating. Many publicity people send suggested questions to reporters in advance of interviews now, and you’d be shocked how many of those suggested questions make up the entirety of certain published author interviews.
The author interview machine is broken; it’s become so slick that people’s eyes just slide off whatever pap eventually gets published. For the most part, I’ll only interview an author if they’re undeniably awesome (Gahan Wilson was an offer I couldn’t refuse), or they have something genuinely interesting to say (I talk to Mary Roach in the new issue of The Stranger out tomorrow; she is maybe one of the most charming authors in the business, and she loves to talk about what she’s learned). It’s disappointing to see that even writers for The Paris Review—one of the best publications for interviews in the world—feel the same way.
I hate author interviews because the interviewer almost always thinks it’s appropriate to ask prying questions about the author’s personal life. Why don’t they just talk about the work? If it can’t stand up for itself then it’s not worth interviewing the author.
I loved that Gahan Wilson interview. I still think about his assessment of children whenever I see children. Which is a lot.
As an avid reader, I usually don’t care much about author interviews, even authors I really like. Especially authors I really like. I don’t want to hear some lame comment spoil my enjoyment of the book.
I enjoyed the Vampire Chronicles. I couldn’t care less about Anne Rice’s descent back into christianity, or her recent spurning of said christianity. It is a distraction, and irrelevant to the enjoyment (or not) of the book. And I’d guess a vast majority of authors are far more boring than her.
Tell me about the book. Not the author.
@1 Yeah, the idea of that sometimes boggles me. It depends on the author entirely — if it’s a private person, stick to the work or away from their private life. If the author is more open generally, then go to town. And being juicy or salacious isn’t automatically a good interview. I’d rather an interview with the author getting to talk about their craft and creative process rather than drinking and porn any day. It’s like, if I got to interview Stephen King by email about anything with 10 questions and 10 follow ups, would I ask him about his wild coke fueled years? Sure, I could, but there a hundred more interesting things to ask him about.
Less faux literary nonsense that’s just dressed up TMZ traffic/reader mongering and more in-depth Charlie Rose or Actor’s Workshop talking about craft, please.
I say it every time I’m given an opening: Artists, of whatever sort, are almost always the people who have the least interesting things to say about their own work.
I’ll grant an exception for technical details of how they work, if you are the sort of consumer-of-arts who is interested in such things, but nearly every time I read or hear an interview with a writer, musician, or visual artist whose work I like, I come away from the interview less enthusiastic about the work than I was when I went in.
Hey, I’m undeniably awesome. I just need to write a book.