>> I just want to start by saying
thank you for reading the book,
even though you were required to.
I really appreciate it.
>>I'm just warning you I've
taken my [inaudible].
So God knows what will happen
[inaudible comment].
Okay. So we're going to start with -- George was
a student here in the MFA Program at Syracuse.
So I thought maybe we could start by talking
about your early experiences,
maybe even pre MFA.
And then when you were taking the MFA.
And maybe be specific about
what workshop was like.
And what you want your experience,
you know, was like.
>> Well, I was raised in Chicago and not around
writing, you know, publishing or anything like.
So I went to engineering school at this
place called Colorado School of Mines.
Which you would always think means
you were a mime, but it's with an N.
[inaudible] And so, you know, I didn't
really know you could be a writer.
Like if you're a working class
person it maybe doesn't occur
to you that that's choice, you know.
Even though I liked it, and I liked to read.
But so then I went to engineering school.
Got a degree.
And went to work in the oil
fields for a couple of years.
And that was in Sumatra.
And all the time I kind of was scribbling
out on the side a little bit and reading.
And then came back.
Got sick in Asia swimming in a river
that was contaminated with monkey poop.
So that's something you don't want to do.
I got really sick.
So I was kind of like I was 20ish, 21, 22.
And I felt all the time hung over.
Like if I didn't sleep 15 hours
a night I'd wake up the next day,
and it was exactly like a killer hang over.
So, you know, that was kind of a weird,
you know, early look at old age I guess.
But anyway so then I -- I was just kind of
-- I quit that job because of the illness.
And I was just kind of farting around.
I was traveling around [inaudible] --
>> Right.
>> -- and in the meantime, you know, don't be
scared, but your degree actually can expire.
Like I had worked.
And then I took three or
four years off to bum around.
And I went back to find a job.
They were like what have you been doing?
Oh, I've been kind of hitchhiking around.
Next, you know.
So then I just was -- I was at this really
crazy party actually in Amarillo, Texas.
Kind of a real decadent thing.
And I'd gotten nervous and
went off in the corner.
And there was a People magazine sitting there.
And in there there was an article
about Raymond Carver and Jay McInerney.
And they were in this thing called
a Syracuse Creative Writing Program.
Apparently it paid you to study writing.
So I thought, that sounds good.
So I applied and got in.
And, like, a month later or whenever
Tobias Wolff called my house,
this famous writer Tobias Wolff.
So great, you know, I'd never met a writer --
I had met one other writer before I came here.
So I just kind of -- my dad had bought me this
old Ford pickup truck and with a camper on it.
I came out here.
And I got here --
>> Your parents supported you doing this?
>> Oh, yeah.
Totally. At that point, there were --
I mean there were so many
worse things I was about to do.
You know, I remember at one
point my dad came in.
And you know he knew I had a degree.
And he's, like -- because I was playing
in a band, working at a apartment complex
as a groundsman, working at a convenience store.
I'm like 20, you know, 26 or something.
And my dad goes, you know -- and this is a guy
who never gives advice -- a real sweetheart.
He said, you know, did you
ever think of the military?
And I went, dad, I'm your-- you know.
And so I kind of, you know, anyway.
So I come out here.
And I only had -- I somehow had, like,
spaced on the idea of a security deposit.
So I showed up here with a $180 in my pocket.
Couldn't get a apartment.
So I lived in that truck on M Street
for two weeks before we started class.
But anyway, so then the whole thing was
I'd never been around other writers at all.
And suddenly there's, you know, 18
great fiction writers and our teachers.
And, you know, the magical thing was I
came here thinking kind of like, well,
I'd like to be a writer, you know I don't know.
And after the first week, I was like everyone's
treating me like a writer so I must be one.
And then the question is which one, you know?
And everybody was -- I don't how
it was when you went to school.
But everyone was working so hard and
reading so much more deeply than I was.
It was just like a real kind of an ass
kicking, you know, to say you were pretending
to be a writer before but now
it's really the serious deal.
>> So you had the sense that
you had a lot of reading to do?
>> Oh, yeah.
I was really badly read.
I had an engineering degree.
I think took two humanities courses; one
of which was called the Assent of Man.
And you just sat in a room like
this and watched a video, you know.
The [inaudible] period was rich in rocks,
you know, everybody's asleep, you know.
So I didn't know anything really.
And I had read -- I had like an
aversion to contemporary writing.
I would read Hemingway sometimes.
Or, you know, anybody who was dead I felt
was fair game because he couldn't, you know,
I didn't have to worry about him.
But I was sort of a little
bit afraid of sophistication.
I was afraid of anything from Europe, you know.
I didn't want -- I wasn't interested so
I was very poorly read when I came here.
And I still am actually.
And I'm still trying to play catch up.
No really.
I'm trying to play catch up but --
>> I remember you saying that
when you were here you were --
despite what your application that got you in --
that you were trying to kind of
write to be this different writer
from who you actually turned out to be.
So what was the process where you found
your way into being the writer you are now
from that MFA moment when you were
still trying to do this other of thing?
>> Yeah, when I was here I always joked
that I had this medical condition
called a Hemingway boner.
Which is where, you know, a young person reads
Hemingway and loves him so much that you're
like every other writer is inferior.
And for a while you start to sort of
think and, you know, write like him.
>> Was it the content of Hemingway
that inspired you or the style?
Or what exactly was it?
>> I think it was his style.
But also it was the lifestyle.
I remember -- maybe one of my first memories
as a kid is seeing footage about his death.
And like adventurer Ernest Hemingway who used
to hang around with movie stars and wrote --
so something about that was appealing.
I thought he was having a
really amazing life, you know.
And then when I read I also, you
know, it's kind of like if you --
I remember when I was in high school there's
a teacher I really loved and respected.
And I was stealing, you know, like the
beginnings of intellectual curiosity.
But I was really lost.
So I went to this teacher kind of
sweetly and kind of obnoxiously and said
who would you say is the most
intelligent person who ever lived?
And this guy very -- he just
said Immanuel Kant, like that.
I said all right.
So I marched over to our little South Side
of Chicago library and got out Immanuel Kant.
I'll start here.
And it was like reading a friggin
-- you know, like in Chinese.
I just like hum.
That's, well, that's a hard page.
That's a difficult section.
And pretty soon I went through the whole book.
So I think I had that kind of
self educated person's fear
of fancy pants stuff [inaudible]
stuff that I couldn't get.
So whenever Hemingway -- at least
I thought I was kind of getting it.
You know, the sensual details to
the [inaudible] and the travel.
That all really made sense to me.
And also I kind of connected with -- he
had a great, especially in the early books,
a great memory of what it was like
to be a teenager, be an adolescent.
>> Okay.
>> And that really, you know.
So it's like I think when you're a
young writer you kind of look for stuff
that you simultaneously feel I can do that.
And, whoa, I can never do that.
And he really made me feel that way.
And it also kind of laid out a path.
Like, I thought.
And this is not true, but I thought if I want
to be like him, I got to go have adventures
which was right up my alley, you know.
The reason I can't write well is because
I haven't lived enough, you know.
Which a nice fallacy you tell
yourself if you don't want
to actually sit down and write, which I didn't.
But basically what happened was --
the whole time I was here I really
was kind of stinking up the joint.
I was writing a lot of bad Hemingway, you know.
Nick walked into the Walmart.
It was pleasant.
You know, that kind of thing.
And then, you know, as will happen, eventually
you get sick of -- I mean if you're a musician,
you know, or a film maker,
you have an influence.
But after a while you get sick of trying to be
Tarantino because you can feel the falseness.
And you can feel the distance between what you
actually know that small set of [expletive]
that you actually have figured out for
yourself through pain or loss or whatever.
And that you won't have taken away from you.
And over here that false language
that you're using, you know.
So now unfortunately that took me maybe
another five years after I got out of here.
I had gotten married to Paula.
And we had two girls.
And started working a job.
And only then, you know, I
was maybe -- I was almost 30.
And I could sort of see the ship sailing away
like the world didn't really
mind a bit if I quit writing.
It kind of would have prefer
it actually, you know.
>> You were kind of -- it was almost
out of desperation [inaudible].
>> It was totally out of desperation.
Because I kept trying to, you know
-- yeah, sometimes if you try to --
if you're in control of something
and you're on top of it.
And you're managing it, then that
thing never gets to be itself.
You know so my thought was,
well, as a writer my job is
to know what I want you to feel on which page.
And you shut up.
I'm going to make you feel it, you know.
And I would pull up my big dump truck full
of my manure, you know, and dump it on you.
And then you would be happy
and give me $23, you know.
But then in that moment of desperation, I
realized I was over controlling everything.
And actually specifically the thing that
I wasn't ever doing was being funny a bit.
I was never funny.
>> Really.
>> It was all very tragic.
Oh, my god.
Very serious.
Lots of stories about young
men in Asia who were mortified.
You know something would happen
and, oh, human beings very bad.
You know, just like that.
But in person, even in my
worst I'm always joking.
I had -- one time -- the first girlfriend
in high school very little sweet romance.
And she said -- and this is how she talked.
I'm going to have to break up with you.
I said, well, why?
And she said, well, because
you're always joking.
Every time we doing it you just tell a joke.
And I made a joke just like that, you know.
>> Right. Right.
>> And she just kind of threw up her hands.
And so in life like whenever I was
under stress or nervous or, you know,
trying to get something, I
would always try to be funny.
But for some reason in writing I think this
is you know class stuff, I wouldn't let it in.
I would always -- I said, well, a
writers not funny; a writers serious.
And a writer is almost impossible to understand
if he's good like Kant, you know, Kant.
So that was it.
And in that moment of crisis I
just was in a conference call.
I was working at an engineering company.
And I was like this scribe
of the conference call.
Not needed.
And I just was so bored.
Our kids were little.
I started writing these Dr. Seuss things
[sound effects], and I'd draw a picture.
Turn the page.
Just really not even aware of what I was doing.
And they were kind of dirty and kind of funny.
And the pictures were nuts, you know.
And I took that home that night
and just through it on the table.
And Paula, my wife, I could
hear her laughing, you know.
And it was the first time in about seven
years that she'd had a real authentic reaction
to my work that wasn't like, well, you know.
You could always go to law school.
So that was huge.
And suddenly, I mean, we've all had that feeling
where you know there's a part
of yourself that's authentic.
And that just came -- in a moment of
desperation I was able to produce that finally.
And I felt so happy.
Suddenly I would be working.
I was writing a book at work.
And I could just know what was good, you know?
I knew which way to go.
I knew when it wasn't working.
Whereas before, I'd always been kind of
lost and would turn to theoretical things.
What would Hemingway do, you know.
Or, oh, I must be in the second of the
three acts, you know, something like that.
But now I just really felt at
home and comfortable, you know.
>> Well, let's segue then to some of the
process questions I wanted to ask you.
And maybe we'll start with humor,
since you were just talking about that.
You have this great ability to --
and we'll talk about satire too --
you have great ability to
make jokes and to use satire.
And yet it never -- it doesn't fall into that
problem where I sometimes see with some work,
especially student work, where it
feels like you are being mean spirited
or you're making fun of the character.
Somehow you can be playful about the
self delusions that the characters have,
the language that they don't quite see through.
The euphemisms they use.
And yet we're always on their
side somehow even if they're kind
of terrible people or failed people.
How do you manage that?
I mean, have you --
>> Well, I think, I mean the
kind of easy answer is revision.
Because often in my stories the
first drafts will be too mean.
>> Okay.
>> They'll be too mean.
And/or sometimes they'll be too nice.
I'll be too, you know, I'm trying to channel
[inaudible], and there won't be any bite to it.
And, you know, the thing is as a writer,
you kind of got to do what whatever
you do that throws off sparks.
You might want to be this kind of
writer, but if when you do it you suck,
then you're going to have to change your plan.
And so for me, I liked the idea
of being a gentle talk soft kind
of loving Chekhovian writer.
But when I do that, it's just kind of -- the
pages just fly by, but not in a good way.
But when I put a little bit of cruelty
in it, it somehow it bites, you know?
So what I do is I just start with something.
And then, you know, basically the hardest thing
I think is to clear your mind of what you did.
And what you think about your story.
And go back the next day and read it fresh.
And say, yeah, does this-- how would this
affect me if I hadn't read it before?
And often in that stage I'll go, oh,
god, this guys kind of mean, you know.
And that's actually that is not so hard.
You just add something nice, you know?
Like I had a story called
"The Barber's Unhappiness."
Which is -- there was a guy in our
neighborhood back in Rochester who was a barber.
I didn't know him.
But he was really kind of a perv.
Like whenever a woman would walk
by, he'd always check her out.
Even if she was on a bus,
you know, side of a bus.
Or if she was an old lady, a
corpse he would [sound effect].
And so I watched him at the
bus stop for about a year.
I'm going to write a story and
really nail that guy, you know?
So I did. And it was -- I had about
eight or nine really funny pages
of just nailing that tendency in him.
And then I noticed that the
story just flat lined.
It wasn't fun anymore.
It was just a guy kicking this guy he'd
made up, which is kind of ridiculous.
So then I thought, okay, I have to
somehow give him a little bit of hope.
I got a, you know, because I'm not subtle.
I just said, okay, let's pretend that he
doesn't have any toes on one foot, you know?
Drop that detail.
And suddenly now you kind of go, ah,
that pervert has no toes, you know.
And so it's really kind of mechanical I think.
You know you see -- what's interesting is
if you do that over the course of a story,
it does have kind of a moral ethical feeling.
It feels like you love your characters.
And I would argue that you do, and you did
it by paying attention to them, you know?
>> Okay.
>> Like if you're doing 97 drafts, and every
time you get to the part that says he did so
and so, you're looking a little at that.
That's a form of loving that guy
by taking the time to slow down,
and see if you got it right the first time.
>> It's also strikes me as a way
of moving toward complication.
And also being precise, right,
about how you're going --
and that also is going to make
that person seem more dimensional.
>> Exactly, yeah.
>> Because people aren't just one thing.
>> That's right.
And, you know, you want them to
be at the beginning of the story
because they're easier to manage.
>> Right.
>> If the guy's a bad guy, it's
easy just, oh, make him bad
and hit him with a bus, end of story.
>> Right.
>> But that's not actually
what we're doing, you know,
what we're doing is we're seeing what is the
nature of goodness and badness, you know.
Like in this book that Al
Ruson [assumed spelling] guy --
>> Bad guy.
>> He does a really [expletive] thing.
And yet, you know, he's got his moments, and
you can kind of -- so I think you're, yeah.
And the interesting thing to me and the kind
of mysterious thing is how do you do that?
Well, I think you do it by revising.
By going back over and over and over and
micro adjusting different phrases, you know.
So and you do that -- I do it to ear.
Like I'll phrase sounds lame, a
little bit not quite there, adjust it.
And the mysterious thing is as you do
the adjustment often more detail comes
into the world.
And as you're saying, that makes
complication and it makes nuance and all that.
>> Which actually changes the narrative.
>> Totally, yes.
>> So do you do this revision -- do you go
through toward what you think is the end
of the draft and then start revising?
Or are you just revising as you go along?
>> Almost never the first thing.
Usually I'm just trying like
-- it reminds me a little bit
of if you were painting a long hallway, but
the paint was difficult so you'd get three feet
and then you'd go, ah, I missed a spot.
And you walked to fix the spot.
You'd make some footprints
and have to fix those.
And then you'd go I don't
want to start over, you know.
So it's, I mean, if you see it
in time lapse I think it's kind
of like a three page burst,
gets cut down to one.
Builds up to six, cut down to four.
Goes up to four [inaudible]
because I was drinking some beer.
Comes down to one, you know?
That kind of thing.
>> Right.
>> And so I kind of feel like I have to have
a pretty good idea of what happened behind me,
which happens coincident with
the language solidifying.
>> Right. Right.
And then you're also going deeper and
deeper into recursions or repetitions
that you might have because you're carrying that
off over to not forgetting where you've been?
>> Exactly.
>> Which is why it has all
that nice connection to it.
So let's talk about endings because I
think endings are something that a lot
of people have difficulty with
both as readers and as writers.
What should it -- and may be not
just talking about your own work
but stories that you really admire.
What do you look for in an ending?
Like, what do you think an ending should do?
And in your book you have, you know different --
I know you've said to me sometimes
that you've tried different endings
when you get stuck sometimes on a story.
I think that's an interesting because
I was thinking about say "Victory Lap."
And in that story, I could
imagine the reader might think
that the big climax of it
is Kyle killing the guy.
And that's what you're sort of expecting.
That's the big decision.
And it happens.
And what you maybe wouldn't be expecting is
that Kyle would go too far and hit and kill him.
Right? And that would be
kind of an interesting story
if Allison hadn't stopped him you
could go a different way with it.
And it would be a darker story.
>> I did go that way.
>> Okay. So I'm wondering about that.
Talk about the ending.
>> You know the nice thing about being
a story writer, is it's not 700 pages.
So if a story like that is 26, you can really,
really get to know every micro movement.
And certainly the ending you can.
So that one -- what I remember is when
I sold it to the New Yorker it was --
I think it was just -- I think
he killed a guy, I think.
I'm not sure.
Or maybe he didn't, but he
decided not to kill him.
And then at the end his parents
were talking to him.
That was it.
And somehow I know it was all right.
And they bought it, I mean, so it was okay.
But, you know, one of the things that happens
to me is when I'm done with a story I can kind
of be real honest and go, yeah,
there's something funny on page 18.
I don't know what it is.
This one I noticed it that
Allison, who I really liked.
I really loved that voice, you know --
>> Right.
>> -- that she had just vanished
from the story --
>> Right. You start with her.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Right. So the symmetry would
argue that she would come back.
And I couldn't figure out how.
And I tried to write a scene in her
voice as the guy was dragging her off.
But interestingly you can't.
I couldn't because when you're scared you're
basically like going [sound effects] you know.
You're not going, well, it's a funny kind of
thing that I'm being abducted at the moment.
Oh -- you're like -- I almost
got in a plane crash once.
And I remember my thought was
exactly this, [expletive],
[expletive], [expletive], [expletive].
That was it.
I mean, really I couldn't even
remember my name I was so scared.
So if you're trying to make -- be
a little bit authentic as a writer,
you can't have a big intense comic
intermonologue while someone is being dragged
away by a rapist.
You just can't do it.
So she was out.
And because of that for boring
technical reasons I had
to write the rapist, which I didn't want to do.
And still at the end she was gone,
and I didn't like it structurally.
And also I didn't like it
as a father of daughters.
Because I didn't like that the stories about
a chick who gets saved by a dude, you know.
That just seemed kind of like, ah.
Now if that had to be, so be it.
These things happen.
But I was really looking for an opening.
And so it was the moment when he, you
know, Kyle did sort of surprise me
with that he's going to kill the guy.
And I thought wait a minute she's still alive.
Let's go see what she's doing.
So I went in the house with her.
And she had made the call.
And she's -- that little riff.
And then I thought, oh, yeah,
she could just step out.
You know, and one of the principles I
believe in is that if an action happens
through the interference of another agent
it's more interesting than if it just happens.
So in other words, if Kyle decided
not to kill her that's okay.
I'd kill the guy.
But if she stopped him from killing,
that's more interesting somehow.
>> So then why did you decide to
go -- we find out from her parents.
And you almost have it both ways.
>> Yeah [inaudible].
>> Because in her fantasy, she doesn't stop him.
>> Right.
>> And then the parents say no, no, you did.
And it's this beautiful, beautiful ending.
And there's some weird way
the end direction there kind
of saves it from being too sentimental.
>> That's exactly -- no you're
-- that's exactly right.
And that's a writer's [inaudible] -- because
I did have -- I wrote it out, you know.
She went out, the yells.
He dropped a rock.
You can hear the violins now.
He dropped the rock.
They embraced.
They had six kids.
Whatever, you know.
And then later that night.
You know it just was [expletive].
[inaudible] it was just like too obvious.
At that point you look -- exactly
you look for a miss direction.
Is there some way I can get these facts out
there in a way that isn't like a, you know,
a made for [inaudible comment] TV movie, yeah.
And somehow I don't remember
exactly how but that dream came in.
And also I had fragments around
where Kyle's parents talked to him.
So I thought, oh, yeah, let's have a
conversation with her parents instead.
And so that was sort of just
subconscious kind of put that fragment
out there, and then I repurposed it.
But it was something I can't remember exactly,
but in that dream you're
able to jump forward in time.
And thus you're able to suspend the
reveal that he doesn't kill the guy.
>> Right. You created actually
a bit of suspense there too.
>> And you can embed in a
little bit of back and forth.
So I think this stuff is real
small line to line stuff.
Where in that case it was kind of interesting
because the story was already
in galleys at the New Yorker.
And was going to be finalized in like two days.
And I hit on that, and I just
[inaudible] stayed up real late.
And it's almost this subconscious
had it, but it hadn't produce it yet.
And then it just [sound effect].
You know, and when I sent it to Debra at the
New Yorker, she was like, yeah, this is right.
And we didn't change a word I don't think --
>> Because it was better.
>> Yeah, better.
Yeah.
>> So one of the things then I'm hearing you
say is that you could have a good ending,
and then you can even have a better ending.
>> Totally.
Yeah.
>> And part of it is everything that
you've put forward is there at the end.
>> Yeah.
>> So --
>> I was thinking, you know, an ending is sort
of like -- and we talk about this in workshop.
But it's like a, you know, one of these jugglers
who throws seven bowling pins in the air.
So part of your job as a writer is to get some
bowling pins in the air that are interesting
and that are -- and so the people will
go, oh, yeah, as far as I'm concerned,
there's like seven pins in the air.
You feel that.
You know, you feel what's at stake.
And then the ending is just one knowing they're
out there, and two, receiving them, you know.
And I did a thing once here at SU
where I taught a Kirk Vonnegut story.
I can't remember the name of it.
Great story.
I photocopied it, sent it out to the students.
And then I was reading it right before class,
and that there was something
missing at the ending.
I knew the story, had read it before.
And that's funny.
Well, it turns out that the anthology had made
a mistake, and the last page was left off.
But where it ended was kind
of almost an ending, you know.
So I had a teaching moment, you
know, as if I had done it on purpose.
And I said, okay, so since I cleverly left off
the last page of the story, you guys write it.
Write what happens.
And this was a freshman --
and they weren't writers.
And every single one of them
wrote a really viable ending.
>> Wow.
>> And I think the reason was they -- Vonnegut
had written the first seven pages so well
that everybody knew what was at stake.
And some of them caught the
pins in a different order.
Some of them opted to may
be not catch every pin.
But the structural solidity of the first
part made it, the ending, a no brainer.
So what I tell my students
is if the ending is no good,
it's not the ending it's the middle, you know.
>> Right. Fix that part first
and then the ending --
>> Because almost anybody -- I think,
you know, the other definition of --
I said one time the ending is
stopping without sucking, you know.
>> Right.
>> So really I think if the wheels are in
motion, you almost can kind of walk away
from a story if it's put
in motion in the right way.
>> Well, to get from the endings
some of your endings are all very --
you don't have like a George Saunders ending.
They're all different from each other.
And in some of them you don't find
out specifically what happens.
And sometimes you do.
In "Spiderhead" you find out what happens.
In "Home" we don't really know.
We think, probably we hope, that he
doesn't do these terrible things.
>> Right.
>> And in other stories you also --
you leave a lot out sometimes, right?
You leave out -- we don't know exactly
what atrocity this guy in "Home" did.
We don't know what the guy in
"Spiderhead" did to get, you know, exactly.
He did something that was illegal.
And we don't know in "Exhortation"
what that companies does or produce.
So thinking, you know, I
think you've sometimes talk
about [inaudible] ambiguity that's
the expression that you used.
You talked a little bit about, you know, in
fiction what to leave out and what top put
and how you make those decisions.
>> Well, I think, especially in
a short story, there's kind of --
I imagine there's sort of
two machines running at once.
One is the kind of human antidotal machine
like, whoa, did that guy kill his family or not.
You know, what happens at the end.
And that's valid.
That's what powers us through the story.
But astatically, the under machine
is the one that actually matters.
So for example, in the story like "Home" what
I would say was important was that if he had
to kind of describe it in a pithy way,
he went from being lonely, ostracized,
and ignored to being suddenly seen.
>> Right.
>> That's the story.
Now, he'd been seen.
Everybody came to his rescue.
They might not succeed.
In person I think they will.
I think he's not, you know, the energy changed.
But even so, the point is he was
invisible, and now he's seen.
He was ignored and now he's [inaudible].
So to me that's the story, you know.
In "Victory Lap," you know, you don't really
find out what Kyle's parents said that night
>> Right.
>> And I think part of the art is
to say, well, how much can I omit?
Like, I would imagine if we took a poll, most
of us would feel that Kyle's relationship
with his parents changed after
that incident for the better.
But I would argue even if it didn't, he changed.
He changed for the better.
>> Right.
>> So therefore then you're doing this kind of
algebra like, okay, I could add another scene
to that where he talks to his parents.
But I think it would be so clumsy, you know.
>> Right.
>> So I think his story form
is to take out, take out,
take out so that the reader
knows exactly what happened.
But maybe not beyond a certain
goal post, you know.
>> Because it changes it.
So like in that story the "Falls."
If you find out whether he rescues the girls
then it's no longer about his decision.
>> That's right [inaudible] right.
>> It's about the success of his decision.
>> That's right.
>> Which changes the story.
>> Yes. It takes -- I would say it takes
the story from the astatically sophisticated
under story and makes it antidotal.
Oh, he saved them, that's good.
But actually if you're reading the
story correctly, the fact that he jumps
into the water is the culminating thing.
>> Right. So it's resolved
in the important part.
>> I think so --
>> Right. Right.
Right. And you want to leave out
everything that you can essentially.
>> I think so.
And I like the idea that, you
know, in a story like that or maybe
like "Victory Lap" you can kind of imagine
multiple scenarios equally well, you know.
Then that way I feel like I've done my job.
If you can imagine a world
where Kyle's parents go you're
in big trouble, Mr. You almost killed somebody.
Possible, you know.
You could also imagine the world where
they say we really have made some mistakes.
We're sorry.
We're going to give you more freedom.
Possible. So I feel like if the
writer's done their job right both
of those realties continue to exist, you know.
>> Right. And that kind of
keeps it alive in your head.
So like that Dennis Johnson story two men
you don't know really know what happens
at the very end of the story.
And so you almost can never
forget about the story.
>> That's right.
>> The stories always kind of going.
>> Right. But to me there's a difference
in who -- we talked about this in workshop.
If you know exactly what facts transpire,
then you can make this fruitful ambiguity.
If you don't know, then if the actual --
>> You mean if the writer doesn't know?
>> Well, yeah, and thereby
the reader doesn't know.
>> The reader, okay.
>> Then it's murky.
So there's a little bit of
a difference to the --
>> Yeah. Because sometimes it feels -- sometimes
I think, well, writers will just be opaque --
>> Yeah.
>> -- and think that equals depth.
>> Right. Right.
>> Like I'm just -- I don't really
understand what -- there's no clarity.
Or I don't understand what's happening.
That's on purpose he'll say.
And of course that's just, you know,
that feels very vague and imprecise.
It doesn't feel --
>> There's a fine line -- because, you know,
like, I used, as you guys have noticed,
I use a lot of bad syntax and grammar.
A lot of, you know, kind of substandard speech.
So my thing is that you're kind of like your job
-- it's a little bit like in music a feedback.
You know, like there was a time when
feedback was always bad -- like 1957.
Feedback meant somebody wasn't doing their job.
And then, you know, the Who came along.
And Hendrix came along.
And feedback became a thing.
But you still wouldn't want someone
to have uncontrollable feedback.
So the idea is you're going
to allow the feedback
and manage the feedback and
make it work for you.
So the same way with any kind of --
there are stories that induce
boredom deliberately for effect.
There are stories like mine that use all
kinds of of substandard speech for effect.
But the writer is always at the switches.
So if you're going to use bad
grammar, knock yourself out.
But you're in charge of the effect of that.
>> Right. And you have authority
when you're doing it so they know
that you're doing it purposefully in some way.
>> Right, right.
Which sometimes comes down to, you
know you have to -- I used to --
I got some great advice from
the New Yorker one time.
I had written a pretty funny story.
And the guy Bill Buford [assumed
spelling] was the editor there.
And he said you have four
incarnations of the same joke.
I said, no, I don't.
He said, yeah, you do.
And he showed me where they were.
And he's like so what -- he
said that's not a problem.
You just have to cut three of them.
I was like all right.
And he was absolutely right.
You know, you have, like, somebody tells
the same joke four times you think.
But if you picked the right one then --
so I think that's the trick is it's always a
little bit like maybe like cooking to taste.
If you could taste the food
instantaneously, you know.
Too salty, no problem take
some salt out, you know.
So --
>> Okay. I have a technical, a small
technical question, but what time is it
because I didn't bring my -- do we have time?
[inaudible comment] okay.
>> 4:20
>> Okay. All right.
Good [inaudible] So I noticed that you use
-- in terms of narration and point of view,
you either use the first person
or use very close third person
which you call third person ventriloquism.
Or be call third person subjective whatever.
And it seems to me that in the stories
that have multiple consciousnesses
[phonetic] you use this close third.
While if it's just one consciousness that's
guiding you often you use the first person.
Why couldn't you use with the
space break the first person
in the multiple consciousness stories?
What do you get from not doing that?
Is it just too confusing with the eyes like --
>> You could do it.
I'm doing it now actually.
>> Okay. .
>> Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I think you could.
I always had the feeling, you know,
with -- my stuff is dark, duh.
And it's kind of manic, you know.
And there's a lot of weird [expletive] in it.
So my thought is you have to
kind of manage that a little bit.
I want to always have a manageable
level of weirdness in a story.
So for me somehow combining the first and
the third in a short story is one too many.
I don't know [inaudible].
>> No, no, I know what you mean.
Because it feels -- and it's interesting
that when you do use the third, for example,
in the "Tenth of December," you know,
your narrator, your third person narrator,
disappeared more and more,
you know, over the years.
But when that writer is that third person
narrator is there telling about the [inaudible]
or whatever it is, it's very important.
It's sort of hard to get all
of that necessarily into the --
>> You can't.
And, you know, I was a -- it's interesting
because you -- it's a real trade-off.
If you write kind of a traditional tell a
story in the third person it's very powerful.
And you can create an infinite number of people.
But if you're doing this third person
subjective, which I didn't know
that was called that's why -- [inaudible].
But then you -- I think there's a limit
to how many people you can create.
You can only do, you know, a
very small number of voices.
Like a lot of times, you know,
characters voices repeat, you know.
And so, yeah, it's actually
very, I think very powerful
to do the more traditional third person.
But I don't somehow I can't do it.
I'm more interested in the voices --
>> So you think there's a limit to how many
consciousnesses you can put into one story?
You think like two or three is the max?
>> Only limited by how many you can create.
But if -- look, even in that "Victory
Lap" what was funny because once I --
>> You had three in that.
>> Well, three.
And the problem was once I got
her done and, like, oh, wow,
a 15-year-old boy lived next door, yesh,
I don't think I can do just two
distinct 15-year-old voices.
>> But you did.
>> Kind of.
Well, I did a trick actually was
just his voice isn't much of a voice.
But he's got a quirk.
>> He's got his dad talking to him all the time.
>> He's got his dad talking.
He's got the swearing.
>> Right.
>> So I kind of, you know, [inaudible] since
I couldn't do a distinct voice for him,
I gave him some attributes instead.
And --
>> I see. I see.
>> So it's a lot -- to me it's very much
like the magician thing where, you know,
you can't actually cut a person in half so --
because of, like, state law or I don't know.
But you can make it look like you're doing it.
And that's your job is to make it look like it.
So and my job is to make it look like
there are three people in that story,
although really there's none or maybe one.
>> Right.
>> But you can do it.
I mean, you know what, there's a story in
there called "Puppy" [inaudible comment].
And I learned something really
interesting on that one.
Debra Treisman rejected that
the first time I sent it.
And she said, you know, you are
really, you're kind of beating
up on this white trash woman, Kelly.
And I actually wasn't.
I was actually just doing a really
good authentic white trash voice,
you know, like, I can do that.
It's like my first language.
So but she correctly observed
that it felt unfair.
It felt like she was being kicked
and kicked and kicked and kicked.
>> Right.
>> So she said just go through
and lighten that up by 30 percent.
And part of you went I can't.
It wouldn't be artistically truthful.
But the story wasn't working.
And when I did what she said.
When I just went through and, like --
she would say ain't and I'd change it.
Or friggin, and I would take it out, you know.
And just doing that at about 30 percent
suddenly she got smarter and more considerable.
And she kind of got up there equal
with the other woman, you know.
So it's funny how it's really not about --
you know, a lot of times I know when we talk
about writing at the grad level and certainly
at the under grad level there's a lot of,
in my opinion, talk about
writing from the outside.
Like, what's the theme of this story?
How is the character developed?
But from my experience, you can't
really write out of that energy.
I can't anyway.
[inaudible] I got to go home and do some
[inaudible] work tomorrow I just would jump off
a bridge.
I wouldn't want to do it.
But if you think of it as it's really just a
matter of you going through this eight pages
and tweaking some things, you know,
that feels to me more workable.
And of course, eventually it does lead to
stuff that can be discussed [inaudible].
And all that.
But as a mechanical thing I'm real happy if
someone says make her 30 percent less dumb.
>> Right.
>> That's easy, you know.
>> Or just that what you just
said about how you're trying
to distinguish these two 15-year-olds that
constraint kind of forced you to create this --
>> That's right.
>> -- the idiolect for the boy, right?
And that created more of the narrative about
his parents and the conflict within him.
And that probably led to him possibly
killing at the end because he's was
over reacting after being squelched.
>> Which he wouldn't have
overreacted unless he'd been squelched.
>> Yeah. So that weird -- that
was like a technical problem
that actually changed the
story in a narrative way.
>> Exactly right.
And I think all technical problems -- and
I'm sure this is true for novelist too.
All technical problems change the story.
That's what they're there for, you know.
>> Right.
>> Like --
>> Because there is no difference between the
technical problems and the content of the story.
They are essentially the same thing.
>> Yeah. And the other thing
that maybe is, I mean,
I know I do a lot of traveling to colleges.
And young writers always say
basically they do mean to do that.
Or how did you sync that up?
And it's interesting that like in that story,
I think one of the most important things is
that father who oppresses Kyle I had -- I didn't
even notice it was happening as I was doing it.
It was just looking for some internal voice.
And I had this flash when I was high school --
or in grade school in Chicago there was
this family that lived up the street.
And they had five boys.
And maybe because of that the
family had these really tight rules.
So they actually had major and minor treats.
And the older boys kind of
learned that this was nerdy.
And they went no, no, we don't, no we don't.
But the youngest boy's like four.
And he still had that little
four-year-old speech impediment.
He really was into it.
So he'd say -- his brother's
name was Ray -- and he'd say --
you know Ray would be out
playing with the older kids.
And he'd say way way come on.
It's a special tweat day.
And Ray would go I don't know what
you're talking about, you know.
But I remember that family.
It just -- it's a split second
I remember that family and gave,
you know, and veered in that direction.
But so, you know, the ideas I don't think you
sync these things up in advance or planning.
I think the best ideas just come at speed.
And the subconscious is so much
smarter than we are, you know.
And incidentally, out of those five boys
three of them became Olympic swimmers.
>> So it worked.
>> Yeah. It worked.
>> So do that to your children.
>> Yeah.
>> So the last question I wanted to ask you
about is about language and about you do this --
you're brilliant at this thing that
also David Foster Wallace did a version
of where you take -- and I guess
some -- but yours is very unusual.
You take a lot of receive
language whether it's a platitude
or a cliche like thank you for your service.
Or note to self or, you know, these kinds
of things, and you put them in your --
I mean your sort of take them out of the
ether, out of the colloquial language you use.
And you sort of dislocate them and mix them with
other weird language idiolect language things
that you do for that character, right?
Like the father in the [inaudible] girls
he, you know, he's doing that diary speak.
And he doesn't use articles.
And he says a platitude.
Then he says etc., etc. So he gets these kind of
like, you know, really distinct language tics.
They're all distinct because
they're smushed together.
But even though some of them are familiar.
So talk a little bit about
that that sort of, I mean,
to me know one does that like you do, you know.
>> Thanks.
Well, I mean the truth is
that it's a little bit --
I have all kinds of intellectual things to say.
But the honest truth is I just
do it because I can do it.
Now partly, you know, I was raised in Chicago.
And in our neighborhood there were a lot of
smart people but not a lot of educated people.
A lot of passionate people but
not a lot of refined people.
So you got that wonderful
American combination of someone
who just really, you know, I [expletive] you.
I mean I don't know.
I just want knock the [expletive] out of
you because you're so [expletive] smart.
You know, you think what are you saying?
I think he likes me but, wow, you know.
So there was --
>> So there was some absurdity in there
If you really paid attention to it.
>> Yeah. And also but authenticity.
You know, these were real human emotions coming
through a slightly weird, you know, speaker.
So that was beautiful actually.
I would say that was a pretty good
definition of poetry, you know.
Genuine emotion coming through
a spewed weird speaker.
So then when I go to do it, I
can't do highly literary language.
I can't do Falkner, you know.
But if you said do a three minute
monologue, I could do those voices all day.
So I think doing the voices is actually for
me the big compositional thing to sit down
and start really trying to have fun and try
to be inventive and energetic in creation.
Then of course, the trick is to come back and
clean that up so it's not just a rant, you know.
Because -- and to select which
weird speeches you're going to keep.
But it's mostly, you know, at the
time of doing it it's like improv.
And then with the advantage that
you get to come back and clean
up your improv indefinitely, you know.
>> But there seems to be a
political content to it too.
I mean there's always --
it seems that, you know,
you could argue that in a George
Saunders story that, you know,
you're not very interested in
the woes of the one percent.
I don't know if you noticed
this or not [inaudible comment].
>> It's sort of like the
put upon working guy or girl
or middle class guy who's
just sort of struggling.
And it seems that the systemic things are
not up for, you know, debate in the story.
But the characters reaction to them
is there opportunity for grace, right?
Whether they can sort of see
through the euphemisms and the lies
that they kind of live with all the time.
The stories that rationalize their own behavior.
Their misbehavior.
Their easy behavior.
And sometimes they break through.
And they realize their -- that's bull
[expletive] they need to do the right thing.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Sorry I'm [inaudible].
>> Oh, I hope not.
I [expletive] hope we can [inaudible comments].
>> You know it feels almost like -- maybe
you're not conscious of it when you're doing it.
But there's a critique [inaudible
comment] impedes moral behavior maybe.
>> It's true.
And I think it's a critique that's very
authentic because I kind of lived it.
You know, to be -- I had -- when I was
in my 20s I was always broke, you know.
And had some really kind of
humiliating things happen to me
because I wasn't, you know, didn't have money.
And so that's stuff gets hardwired into you.
But I think also on another level isn't
that the case that all of us have --
we live in exactly that scenario you just so
beautiful described which is your clutter.
You're cluttered with your own thoughts.
You're cluttered with your
habits, your aspirations,
your prejudices, your fears mostly I think.
>> What other people have said to you.
>> Oh, yeah, those voices are in your head.
So and you're cluttered with the idea
that your central to the universe.
That you're never going to die.
That, you know -- well, all
this incredible confusion.
You put into this world.
You fall in love.
You love somebody.
You love your kids.
And there you are trying to do your
best with this incredible profusion
of confusing voices in your head.
But every so often you do
break through, you know.
So that's for me that's where the most
interesting parts of fiction is when somebody
who sort of had the deck stacked against him
and often it is socioeconomic is
able to kind of go wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
I'm hearing a pure tone, you know.
>> Yeah.
>> And kind of goes through that.
And I think it's certainly -- it's
political, but also for me very personal.
As to have been, you know, alive 54 years
and still be making the same stupid mistakes.
And still having failures of
charity and failures of clarity
of vision is kind of frustrating, you know.
And as you get older it becomes a
little more of a desperate race.
You can see the doorway coming up.
And you're, like, will I ever
see things clearly you know.
So I think for me fiction is one
way to work through it and to sort
of see how do we confuse ourselves.
You know, how do we make these
confusing voices for ourselves maybe.
How do we accept them from other people?
And then like you said finally
how do you break through?
You know, so like in "Tenth of December" I
think that guy is a pretty nice guy, you know.
And he starts off doing something
for a pretty good reason.
And halfway through he goes wait
a minute what were those voices
that were telling me to do this, you know.
And he desperately tries to
back out of it, you know.
>> That's such a beautiful story too.
I noticed that both in -- that his miss speech
speaking and then the boys kind of miss speaking
from two totally different reasons.
It's such a beautiful symmetry the way they
developed because the boy kind of uses,
you know, words he doesn't quite understand.
>> Right. Right.
Yeah.
>> And then he's misspeaking because of
the medication he's on or the illness.
And it's really quite lovely the way that --
>> I never noticed that till you said that.
>> That's beautiful.
>> Yeah. I did mean to do that.
It was something I worked on quite hard.
>> It's like reading James [inaudible].
>> Exactly like.
Yeah
>> Okay. So maybe we should --
>> Except you can friggin understand it.
>> Not like that Kant guy.
Maybe we should just stop there.
Thank you, George.
>> Thank you very much.
Thanks. Thank very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Okay. And we're going to have a break,
and please be back in your seats at 5:30.
Thank you so much.
