In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out and it’s vivid, I find that I care about it, and it’s part of me.
I’m an enormous fan of Thomas Bernhard’s books, and I like the relentless feeling in his work – the pursuit of darkness, the negative – and I think in some sense I’ve internalised that as what one is supposed to do.
I work, and then I leave the office, and I’m with my kids and just sort of enjoy them on a visceral level, and I don’t feel like I’m exorcising my own deep ideas about parenthood and about how my life will come into play in my work.
To me one of the amazing technologies of writing is the way it can listen in on thoughts. I don’t feel that that’s natural to other art forms in the same way.
Being with him was like being alone underwater – everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced.
The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms – the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.
The common, the quotidian, is so much more unyielding to me, really stubborn and hard to work with, and I like this because it makes me think and it makes me worry. I can’t just plunge my hand into the meat of it. I need new approaches.
Mostly we’re motivated to control ourselves in public. Mostly. At home the motivation is much less clear. At home there’s a bit of a lab for bad behavior.
