E-Mail This Article to a Friend Painting with words (continued)

Q: In terms of looking, the book is as much a visual experience as it is a written one. Talk a bit about how the visual elements came about.

A: I don’t think of it as being words and pictures. I was trying to make something, and both words and images happened to be involved. One of the reasons I include the images — and there are many reasons — but one is, I think they have a lot to do with what it’s like to be a kid, especially now. And I wanted to reflect that in this book because there’s something about being a kid now that’s never been true before in terms of how connected they are and also how alone they must be.

But more than that, September 11th was such a visual event. Anybody’s memories of it, I assume, include certain pictures, like a plane going into a building or a person falling or a building collapsing. That’s how we experienced the day, and that’s how we think about the day. And I wanted that to also be expressed in the book.

Q: I think there’s a certain tendency with people to want to talk about where they were on September 11th. Do you think of this as telling your version of the story?

A: Obviously, the book has a lot to do with September 11th. September 11th is sort of the canvas, but it’s not the painting. In my mind it’s the thing onto which the story is told. I definitely didn’t feel like I was telling my story about my relationship with it. What I was really trying to do was tell a story about what it feels like to live in New York now, and so that involves a set of anxieties. It involves a certain amount of curiosity. So maybe I was writing about what it feels like to be me living in New York right now.

Q: And how does that feel? How has it changed?

A: I don’t know that New York has changed. How has my relationship to New York changed? I guess I definitely think about safety. I’m not obsessed with it, but I do think about it. I never used to, never once. But now I’ll be standing on the subway and sort of think, "Hmm, this is dangerous." People talk about the communities becoming tighter, people being nicer. I don’t think that’s true. I think that was true for about half a year maybe. But the thing about New York is that it’s so fucking money-driven that everything answers to that. Just look at the designs for Ground Zero. It started out as this nice memorialized instinct. And now it’s like, "How big can my Kmart be?"

Q: In the book, there are a few times when different characters are asked whether they’re optimists or pessimists. Which are you?

A: At one point, Oskar’s mom says, "I’m optimistic." That’s probably what I would say. I’m not a full-blown optimist, but I certainly try to be optimistic. It’s dangerous — a lot of people walk around thinking that tomorrow is going to be better than today. With issues now like gay marriage, people say, "Oh, there will come a time when gays can marry. It’s pretty clear. We know this, just as we knew that blacks would get the vote." But it’s a really, really dangerous way of thinking because it can lead to complacency: "I think things will get better, so there’s no reason for me to make them better." What’s needed is for people to think, "Things won’t get better unless I make them better."

Q: You were involved with Downtown for Democracy. How does that sort of political activism compare with the political nature of a novel?

A: Totally different and both totally necessary. There’s a time for just raising money by getting the message out, making sure people are informed. And then there’s a time for much more subtle politics. And I guess I did as much as I could. Looking back, I wish I’d done more. I think a lot of people feel that way.

Q: Which came first: the story of the book, the canvas, or the characters?

A: It was Oskar. The book changed a lot in the process of writing it, and at a certain point Oskar just really started to dominate, just really started to take over, and I found him so sympathetic. I found him someone I cared about enough to want to spend a lot of time with. And also that he was a really good mouthpiece for me. I felt like I could speak very naturally through him and very honestly. That’s not to say that literally I feel the things that he feels, but there was something about the way of his being in the world that made me able to express myself through him.

Q: Who are some of your favorite characters from other novels?

A: God, I’ve never really thought about it like that before. You know, it’s really funny, because I’ve realized now that I’m a really character-driven writer, but I’m not a character-driven reader and I’m not even sure I value that kind of writing that much. There’s this great idea that’s always sort of on the tip of my tongue, that an ant is not an entomologist. Just because you are something doesn’t mean you understand it. Even humans, you know, your lungs take in air and expel it, but you have no idea how. So much of writing is doing the thing that you do. Maybe there is this set of writers who sit down and say, "I have this set of themes I want to explore or this order of symbolism or this message." That’s just not what I do at all. Having just finished the book, I’m in a similar position to you when now I look at it like the entomologist rather than like the ant.

Q: Who are some writers today that you admire?

A: Mostly poets, actually. I like to read outside of what I write. It doesn’t mean there aren’t great novelists. But I like to see things that inspire me in such a way that I can use them. It’s hard to use a novel, you know, because that becomes plagiarism. But you can see a movie or hear a song or read a poem and think, "How can I make that into something in my form?"

Q: Do you write much short fiction?

A: Not really. I feel like I have my hands full. I find it so excruciatingly difficult to write at all. And you see writers who do reviews here and there, and I don’t know how they do it. And furthermore, if I ever had an idea for a story, I’d find a way to put it in a novel. I write in such a way that I can keep including the things I’m thinking about and feeling. So that’s why they end up being, not necessarily sloppy, but very collage-like books. A lot of things glued on to it. It’s like the difference between a sculptor who takes a block of marble and carves out the figure and someone who keeps kind of adding clay. That’s more what it’s like for me.

Q: Do you read any?

A: Not really.