Interview with a
Q.
A. I guess because I'm exploring the format in some of my own writing.
Q.
A. It's not ready to show to anyone. In fact the project is more notional than actual—a few notes in a plain text file, which I peek at from time to time.
Q.
A. There's a story about the band Talking Heads, how they wanted to record a song that sounded like Joy Division, but they’d never heard Joy Division, so they relied on rumor and imagination. At first it was a bit like that.
Q.
A. I learned that Lydia Davis had modeled a story of hers, “Jury Duty,” on the David Foster Wallace story. So I thought I’d at least read those two.
Q.
A. I still, now, don’t know. There must be, right?
Q.
A. I was drawn to the fragmentation, dislocation, interruption; how those might contribute to the sense of something being “off.” That Hitchcock scene in Vertigo I’ve been obsessed with—it achieves similar effects, with different means. I think it suits the subject matter, but we’ll see.
Q.
A. Yes, you’re right, those other effects are also quite important. The question is what special aesthetic effects the form can achieve—what it can do, that can’t be done just as well by writing a monologue, or writing both sides of the conversation. Indeed, in the ideal, the story would become worse, if the “Q” side were filled in. I actually doubt that either Lydia Davis or David Foster Wallace exploited the form to its full potential. Too often it’s obvious what the interviewer asked. And in both stories the “A” characters, especially Wallace’s hideous men, are given to long, monologue-ish answers to what appear to be short questions.
Q.
A. The second interview does. It opens with the subject admitting that he does something vaguely awful, presumably to women. After a “Q,” he discusses the origins of this behavior—so that’s what the question must have been about. Then we get this:
‘Well, my own father was, you might say, a man who was by natural proclivity not a good man but who nevertheless tried diligently to be a good man. Temper and so forth.’
Q.
‘I mean, it’s not as if I’m torturing them or burning them.’
That’s a moment where it’s not clear what the question is.
Q.
A. I went back and re-read it yesterday looking for some, and found fewer than I expected. But there was this moment: while serving jury duty the “A” character sees some prisoners walking through the courthouse, and
A. ...it made me feel even more that I was good, or that I was not bad. That it was all very simple...There were people who were proceeding correctly with their lives, and this could be proved by asking them a few questions. And there were people who were not proceeding correctly with their lives.
Q.
A. Though you sensed a bond with the others, when you were all standing around outside during a break. The feeling that you were all in this together, thrown together by chance.
I don’t know what “Q” asked there. There’s a transition from good and bad is simple to a sensed bond between those on jury duty, but the connection between the topics is opaque.
Q.
A. Another is to direct the reader’s attention away from the information exchanged. With only half the conversation, the import of “A”’s contributions becomes obscure, and the focus shifts to the subtext: to what “A” reveals, or betrays, about himself.
Q.
A. I have to admit that’s true. I guess that’s just the effect I’m interested in. But also, Davis doesn’t merely use it to tell the “A” character’s story. There are moments implying something about the interviewer, too.
Q.
A. The Sojourner Truth bit. It’s right near the beginning, I think.
Q.
A. I do prefer it. It’s more light-hearted—though also deep in the way characteristic of Davis. This, even though the “fragmented dislocation” aspect of the form, which is what interests me, pulls in quite a different emotional direction. But if the form lends itself to sinister undertones, that’s hardly an essential feature: there aren’t any in the Davis story.
Q.
A. No.
Q.
A. I don’t quite follow what you mean.
Q.
A. Okay, okay, I understand, but I resent the suggestion.
Q.
A. Look, it’s easy for you to sit there asking the questions, you should try being the one doing the work—
Q.
A. …
A. … Do you—no, no, you go ahead…
Q.
A. Yes, I think it’s going okay. I can’t complain.
Q.
A. No, thank you, right sorry I lost track. I appreciate the chance to talk to you, and that you think your readers might be interested. I’m available anytime if you want to talk more, or if you have any follow-up questions. And of course all the other stuff is up on the website.
"thought" should be "though"