Q&As
by Nathan Englander, August 31, 2017 10:34 AM
Photo credit: Joshua Meier
Describe your latest book.
My new novel is called Dinner at the Center of the Earth. When I handed in the rough draft, my agent made me a pot of tea, sat me down, and said, “You know, you’ve written a political thriller.” The book definitely, very intentionally, has those elements. It’s kind of a thriller, wrapped in a historical novel, that turns into a love story, and ends up being an allegory. It’s a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a subject I’ve been wanting to write a novel about for nearly 20 years. I was looking for a way to explore that very explosive subject through character and plot. In the end, the book demanded this circular structure that, to me, mirrors the heartbreaking circularity of the conflict itself...
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, February 10, 2012 4:16 PM
[ Editor's note: Don't miss Nathan Englander at the City of Books on Friday, February 17. See our events calendar for all the details.] You think I'm not going to miss you all? Well, I am. Today is my last day blogging for Powell's. And I promised I'd find a way to write this earlier and not when I'm racing to the next reading, but, inevitably, that's how things go during book tour. In Boston now. My hotel is on Commonwealth Avenue, the street on which my mother was born. It's a mighty long street, so this hotel itself has zero historical significance. But it does offer a nice view of the avenue, which I'll cheat into a little extra faux-niceness by way of Hipstamatic. If you're unfamiliar with Hipstamatic, it makes everything look a little more charming than the situation might really want it to be. Here, for example, is the wooden-horse-going-crazy lamp in my room. I almost want to take home its Hipstamatic wild-horse version. On the flip side, if you're very-very familiar with the app, you may, at this point, find it a really annoying, cloying way to deliver an image. I happen to love it still. But I'm old enough to have original, actual photos that look that way ? photos with me in them, in plaid suits and saddle shoes. Tonight I'm currently late for Harvard Bookstore, though I'm very excited to get there and read. (And I just got to have dinner in New Orleans with the store's general manager, Carole Horne. [Watch a YouTube video of Carole Horne talking about two of her favorite books.]) And as long as I'm talking about other bookstores ? and thank you, unthreatened and wonderful Powell's, for letting me blog on a week where I'm talking about so many others ? Colum McCann was an angel last night at Greenlight. We both teach in the MFA at Hunter College, and a number of our outstanding students and ex-students were hiding in the crowd. It was great to see them. And doing a talk down the block from your house is always especially sweet. And, for another segue: speaking of outstanding, the literary quarterly Electric Literature sent someone down from their own blog to attend, so there's a better firsthand account than mine, and some photos to boot. After the signing, I went off to raise a glass with the students and some writer friends on the corner. Then my girlfriend and I, and my editor and her husband, had a lovely dinner at Dino's, our neighborhood Italian. With a new collection out in the world, it was a nice, quiet place to sit together and take stock.
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, February 9, 2012 5:42 PM
Does it count as daily blogging if today looks a lot like yesterday? Been running around in circles since the morning and find myself, once again, using my first chance to sit down to reach out to you all, with the get-to-the-event-clock ticking down. This one is at my local neighborhood bookstore, Greenlight Bookstore, where I'll be in conversation with wide-hearted author Colum McCann, who you may just know from reading your beloved copy of Let the Great World Spin or any of his 96 other books (or maybe it's 97, I may have miscounted). (Also, if you've already read Let the Great World Spin, it's time for you to pick up Dancer. And if Dancer's the one you've read, then maybe try Songdogs... and if you've read them all, then I like your taste.) The Local, our Fort Greene/Clinton Hill blog for the New York Times ran a piece today announcing the event, which is mighty nice of them. Also, The Local has a new regular column of great interest called "Dog of the Day," and I thought you might want to see the most recent entry. As for sharing pictures, I don't have video from last night yet, but I do have a couple of photos. Sarah Jones (my partner in crime) was, of course, magnificent and magnificently generous. It was the craziest idea for an event that I've ever had, and one of the absolutely most rewarding. Here's the very kindly audience at the New York Public Library. And here's one of me and Lorraine Levine (and I try not to pick favorites from Sarah's characters, but Lorraine and I have a special bond). And here I am with Sarah Jones, finally, being Sarah Jones. Also, for those of you who still aren't familiar with what she does, here's her TED Talk, which is, of course, worth
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, February 8, 2012 7:53 PM
Tonight is the first event for the new book, and I've spent most of the afternoon at home with curlers in my hair and cucumber circles on the eyes ? prettying myself up for the big event, is the point. I did sneak out of the house this morning to head over to Big Think to talk about writing in a big-thinking sort of way. Everyone there was supremely nice, and I don't know if there's enough bank lights in the world to remove the green sleepless pallor I've been working on this week (and a special thank you to the guy who drove by blasting music out of his car at 5:30 a.m., it definitely didn't wake any of us). Anyway, in case something went horribly wrong and those videos end up hidden deep underground in the Big Think post-Armageddon seed bank, I'll provide you with a couple of the already posted examples so you get the idea. Here's Salman Rushdie on magical realism. And here's Edward Norton talking about his grandfather and urban planning. In about four minutes I'm going to race over to the New York Public Library to bite my nails in a green room, as I wait to start my event with Sarah Jones... which is only theoretically an event with Sarah Jones. For those of you unfamiliar, Sarah Jones is the very unique, very brilliant Tony Award-winning actor-writer (though what she does really defies categorization) best known for the show Bridge and Tunnel or maybe, depending on how old your kids are, as Ms. Noodle on Sesame Street (and, as I type this, it dawns on me that, having done an event with Bill Irwin just recently, I will have, in the span of two weeks, had the good pleasure of spending time with both Mr. Noodle and Ms. Noodle, which is something to ponder). Anyway, the point is, Sarah transforms herself into many, many different people when she performs. And when I say "transforms," I mean, as best as my brain can process reality, she becomes them. When she turns into Lorraine Levine, an elderly Jewish woman, there is no one else in the room but Lorraine Levine. Sarah just up and disappears. It is something amazing to see. And the way Sarah Jones works with characters is ? and this is what fascinates me about her process ? exactly the way a fiction writer works. OK, I'm late now. Hope this finds you all well. And if any good clips from tonight surface, maybe I'll post them here at some point down the line
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, February 7, 2012 4:25 PM
Well, today is the on-sale date for the book. And, as promised yesterday, the unmooring has begun. Which means I spent last night with book-launch flu, hiding under the covers and watching No Strings Attached. Yesterday, I gave you a list of what I was reading (or about to) and thought I'd bridge the gap between the two posts by including one of the Ferlinghetti poems that I read last night. I don't know why this seems fitting to me, but it does. And so, "Nine": 9 See it was like this when we waltz into this place a couple of far out cats is doing an Aztec two-step And I says Dad let's cut but then this dame comes up behind me see and says You and me could really exist Wow I says Only the next day she has bad teeth and really hates poetry
Now don't you feel better? Anyway, I also thought, I might keep showing you around my house (and that's probably because I'm extra aware of my apartment, seeing that I'm about to go on the road, and won't get to spend any real time here for a stretch). When my last book came out five years ago, a reporter from the New York Times, named David Colman, came to my house to photograph an object for a column he does called Possessed. I can't remember if he picks the item, or you do, but he comes to your house and you end up talking about some-something you own that is of interest to him. What we talked about when he came by was an amulet that I'd gotten in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood. (And now that I think about it, I got the amulet when I was walking around with a photographer to take a picture for an article about my first collection. So, maybe that's why I was thinking about it so consciously this morning.) Anyway, today is a day to take stock and think about things, and to cross lots of fingers and throw salt over your shoulder and avoid cracks and say a lot of tfu, tfu, tfu's, and welcome whatever can be welcomed and ward off whatever begs to be warded. When I was looking at that amulet, I couldn't help acknowledge that my interest in such talismanic things continues, and that I've very slowly, along with my girlfriend, begun to surround the original with a collection of hamsot (or hamsas), which are meant to fend off the evil eye, and which I find very beautiful. I've hunted down a few, and some were given as gifts, and a couple don't really qualify as hamsas at all. Anyway, I thought I'd show you what they look like, and see if I can't remember where each of them comes from.
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, February 6, 2012 2:56 PM
[Editor's note: Don't miss Nathan Englander at the City of Books on Friday, February 17. See our events calendar for all the details.] It's been five years since I last guest-blogged for Powell's. I'm happy to be back ? and back with a new book (which is out on Tuesday, and one fine reason why I resurface). Also, blogging on launch week gives me a really nice opportunity to reconnect with you all, and, if everything goes according to plan, for you to have a prime vantage point from which to watch me as I become psychologically unmoored as the week progresses. This "unmooring" is a long-honored book-launch tradition that is dear to my heart. (Though, really, a day before the on-sale date, and I still feel fine.) Since you, kindly people, are the folks who take an interest in a bookstore blog (which means, we probably have something in common), I thought constructing a map of the landscape of books that surround me in a sort of topographical fashion might be a fine way to reconnect. So, if we start in bed, I woke up with the new issue of Granta opened, face down, at my side. The new issue includes Sasha Hemon's essay about his family dog from back in Sarajevo. Sasha told me that very same story on a long walk in Chicago a couple of months ago. It's amazing to read, both as essay, and (see: vantage point, above) as opportunity to see how a story told on a long walk transmogrifies into a finished, printed piece. (There is simply no excuse for using that word, but I leave "transmogrify" in. God knows, it'll never fit into a short story without a wedge to make room.) To my right, also open face down, is Joan Didion's Slouching towards Bethlehem. I've been reading it, one short piece at a time, for a stretch. Right beyond it, and anchoring the night table, is Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son, a novel about North Korea. Behind and below Mr. Johnson's book, I count another 26 volumes and see another three on the floor. I think I should admit that these are just not going to get read and leave them outside my neighbor's door (which is what I do with books that I finally admit are not for me; it's a happy system that we have). But, before dismissing the whole teetering stack, I spy one that I do want to read ? and will read ? at the top of the pile. The Tin Drum sits atop that hill of novels. (Are there any Tin Drum lovers out there who would like to inspire me to dig in? Please do. I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.) So as not to bore you to death, and not to turn this into 57-page post, I best just slip past the books in the hallway, and ignore the ones on the coffee table, and stacked up against the walls. I don't dare peer into my office, or tell you what's on the shelves lining the rest of the living room walls. I'll race right over to the books acquired (and I'm afraid to admit how many there are) this last week. So, what I know I'm going to devour is Aerogrammes and Other Stories, an advance copy of Tania James's new collection. And there's Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, a nonfiction exploration of a "Mumbai undercity." The slimmest book to cross the threshold this week is A Coney Island of the Mind, poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And the fattest ? and one that I'm really wildly excited by ? is a cookbook called What to Cook and How to Cook It, by Jane Hornby. It's 100 recipes detailed in the most wonderfully compulsive manner, with photographs all along the way and through every stage. So, someone like me, who is maybe learning to cook, and is maybe hyper-exacting but has no idea what certain instructions mean, finally understands precisely-precisely what, say, the difference between finely chopped and roughly chopped, diced and sliced, really
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, May 4, 2007 9:57 AM
How about if I start every entry by saying what a good time I had the night before and then telling you that I am en-route to another destination? Well, on the train from Philly, and I did indeed have a really great time at the Free Library last night (that is, once again, a great time seeing folks after the reading). The Free Library is also an excellent building to arrive at ? it's got gravitas. And apparently the podium was very ornate, but on my side all I could see was the bottle of water and some wire. And if I'm to continue with this happy-go-lucky attitude, I also want to say that I've enjoyed guest-blogging this week. And I really, really didn't think I was going to. I much prefer to write and rewrite and obsess, and then to rewrite some more, and tweak a bit, and then to hand in (only to beg changes) whenever I do anything, instead of writing and sending and seeing it instantaneously online. About the obsessing part: Since I can't currently worry about the novel, as it's already written, I'm relegated to worrying about the reception of the novel. My dear publicist shared a very minor bit of information with me yesterday which I immediately glommed onto and began to obsess about. After I brought it up for the eighth time in two minutes she announced, in a very official and motherly tone (though much younger than me): "You've lost your knowledge privilege." That made me laugh. Apparently the wanton abuse of factoids will not be tolerated. When I got to Philadelphia yesterday morning, I got off the plane (which I thought was on time) and strolled on down to baggage claim (see: yesterday's explanation of why I had a checked bag), and there was the literary escort waiting. (For those who don't know, when you're on book tour there are escorts who meet you at each destination to help make sure you don't spend the whole day trying to find your hotel. And they are indeed called 'escorts' which always makes someone laugh at some point. Before the event, when my very excellent escort, a wonderful retired gentleman who likes taking writers around in his mini-van a few days a month, introduced himself to my friend Susan, he said, "I am Nathan's escort this evening." And she and he and then I started laughing, because it did sound just like it sounds.) So, when I met him after disembarking from the plane, he just looked at me and said, "Go get a cab." This was confusing, as the whole point of the escort is so that you don't have to find your way in a cab. And he was standing right there, holding my book so I'd recognize him, looking like he was ready to go. And I didn't have my bag. "You're late," he said. And, apparently, I was. And I had a one hour interview on live radio coming up on the local NPR station. "Can't we wait for my luggage?" We could not wait for my luggage, in fact. The producer was calling. And panic already ensuing, and so we ran to find a cab. And since I didn't have enough cash, the escort gave me a twenty to make sure I could pay my way. Before I left he said, "What does your bag look like?" And, I gave the worst possible answer: "Black," I said. I figured that was that for my stuff. And, since the Marty Moss-Coane radio show is also taped for television, I was thrilled to be in a t-shirt with a picture on it, and a crumpled blazer. Of course there was traffic, and the producer was calling to give traffic-dodging advice and to find out how many minutes away I was, and the publicist calling, and all this accompanied by that horrible pressure to get where you need to be exactly when you need to be there even if that's looking like it's impossible. I tell you all this, because it just amazes me how much pressure can build along the way, and that you can then pull up at the station where the producer is waiting on the sidewalk, and you can be whisked through the building and dropped down into a chair, and somebody can say, "Ten seconds," and then suddenly you're live and Marty (who was an absolute pleasure to talk with) can just launch into that really smooth, calm radio voice and you find yourself in a conversation and it all feels so laid-back and natural, and no one knows that five minutes before you were pulling out clumps of hair and trying to judge if it would be faster to get out of the taxi and sprint the last few
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, May 3, 2007 1:21 PM
If you go to an airport, they will now ask you the following question: "Do you have any liquids in your bag?" I got up at 5:45 in the morning to catch a flight and, bleary-eyed and half-caffeinated, found I was having difficulties with basic comprehension. I was asked the 'liquid' question by the guy who took me to the automated check-in, and then by the woman behind the counter at automated check-in, and then again by the lady to whom I voluntarily relinquished my water. Three times, I answered, "No." After all that, the woman at the scanner shook her head as my bag went through and then security took me aside. As I was well aware ? but simply not processing ? my carry-on bag is chock full of liquids of varying viscosities (toothpaste and shaving cream, margarita mix, saline implants, snow globes, etc). When I pointed out to the nice security lady that it was very early in the day for me (too early for thinking), the security lady made it clear that, just because she was wearing the white shirt and clip-on tie, it doesn't mean it wasn't early for her too. I had a grand old time at the reading last night (that is, afterward, seeing old friends). It's amazing who shows up when you're out on the road. I got to see no less than two Boston-based Shoshanas, as well as a bunch of other folks I hadn't seen in years. Then there are the readers. This is absolutely syrupy and sincere, but I forgot how many kindly people you meet on book tour. Last night and elderly woman came up to get her book signed. She told me that she'd been sick these last six months, and lives across the street, and hadn't really been out. She showed me her cane and said that when she heard I was reading she dug it out and decided to make her way across the street and down the flight of stairs to the event. That's it. That's the whole story. (Except that she made me give her a hug too.) I don't know what to add really, except that I didn't do anything to deserve this effort, but that hearing about it made my day. When I told her so, when I said, "Thank you so much. That makes my whole day," she didn't believe it for a second ? which made me like her even
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, May 2, 2007 10:28 AM
It's Wednesday and I'm on the Acela to Boston. That's the fast train, which a friend once referred to as a rolling gated community. I'm headed to Boston for an appearance at Brookline Booksmith. If anyone is actually reading these posts, the Strand reading went fine. Afterward I went around the corner with some friends to The Old Town for a cheeseburger and a drink (and an extra order of onion rings). It's an excellent old bar. Yesterday was also the official publication day. I think it was Monday morning that a friend, sitting at the coffee shop where I spend an inordinate amount of time, called me first thing to say someone was there reading my book. I know this is an unsophisticated thing to admit, but it's nice and meaningful the first time you hear your book is spotted outside a store being read. Then about two seconds later another friend texted me to say, "I'm sitting at your coffee shop reading your book." So I called the first friend back and said, "Does the man reading my book have a beard?" "What a strange question," she says. "Yes, he does." "Go introduce yourself," says I. "His name is Josh." I know Josh through his wife Rachel, who went to Iowa with me. She's an excellent poet. I mention this because not only was I thrilled at the possibilities blogging allows when I linked to the Little Debbie page on Tuesday, but I saw that after I referenced, say, Lethem, his book popped up in the virtual margin and I think there was a link to him, too. Rachel's been blogging this week and she just called, and so maybe they'll link to that. And as long as I'm linking to every phone call that comes through on this train ride, the editor of the Argentina essay I just finished checked in to discuss some spellings (yes, the racy world of writing). The essay is about a trip I made there in March. It was sort of a visit to the city of my imagination, as I hadn't been there in sixteen years and, in the end, decided not to return until the novel ? until my Buenos Aires ? was complete. As for receiving phone calls on the train, in my defense, I've kept the calls very short and very whispery and am tempted to head over to the silent car, as the man behind me has said, 'human resources' or 'HR' no less than 38 times since
|
Guests
by Nathan Englander, May 1, 2007 12:16 PM
I'm riding the 2/3 Express up toward 96th Street. I often call this subway the Red Line, though I don't think anybody else has in fifty years (if ever). I feel most comfortable when riding this train. And lately I also feel an enormous amount of pressure to move to Brooklyn. All my friends live there. For those of you who don't know the city, 96th Street is all the way uptown toward the top of Central Park and right below Columbia University. I can't really picture leaving my neighborhood, but also end up thinking about it constantly. (I was in the East Village yesterday, and as I walked down the street I was doing that What if this was my street? thing that I do whenever I'm in another neighborhood and feeling that pull.) If I do ever leave, I'll move somewhere convenient to a Red Line stop. Anyway, as for typing on the subway, I can't believe I'm the guy that's so busy that he has to type on his way uptown (and, because of my extreme journalistic integrity, I'd like to make it clear that I finished this entry at home). I touched on this yesterday in my first post, but it really is strange to have such a time-based schedule these days (this from a man who missed his deadline on the novel by a good six years). I keep feeling the need to apologize to everyone for being in a rush. I was having a quick lunch last week and the food just wasn't coming out of the kitchen, and the diners who came after us were long-ago served, and I really needed to get to my next appointment. I went to ask the waitress where the food was. And all I could say was, "I'm really not that guy that wants to know where his food is. But today I am. That is, I never have to ask this sort of thing, and can't believe it's me asking, but, I sort of need to know if it's going to be any longer, because, well, today I'm just that guy." And, if making admissions, I'm also really not a blogger ? and unsure of what I'm supposed to do to adhere to the form. Back to missing my deadline by six years, you can imagine that this is not the kind of writing I usually do. (Even the fact that this entry allows me to self-referentially address the idea of the entry and then comment on that commentary in this parenthetical statement is a loosey-goosey structure that scares the pants off me.) All this to say, since the blog is for Powell's and I'm at the start of book tour, I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to address my day-to-day life as writer-guy. A snippet: Since posting yesterday's entry, I ran off to an interview at my coffee shop with a very nice interviewer, who happened to have been raised religious (like myself), and when I asked her how she identified herself (i.e. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform), she said Flexidox, which I liked very much. Then I ran home to pretty myself up and raced over to Michael Chabon's book party which was a lot of fun, and then ran from there to meet up with some other writer-book-folk who probably don't want their names listed. It was a really nice evening. And now (post-subway ride, post-phone interview) I'm going to finish a piece I've been writing about a trip I took to Buenos Aires last month, and then head out for a reading I'm giving tonight at the Strand. My publicist has informed me that pizza bites will be served. I don't know what those are, but neither did I know what a trifle was when I saw it last week. I gave a reading at the 92nd St. Y. with Jonathan Lethem. Afterwards there was a fine spread laid out, and the aforementioned publicist pointed at the table and said, "Look, they have trifles." I said, "You mean truffles." And she said, "No. Trifles." She was correct, and I offer her this public apology, and, taking advantage of this futuristic form, I also offer a link to the Little Debbie recipe
|