Certainly in the case of 'Kill Your Friends,' a book I wrote more than 10 years ago, I routinely meet interviewers who appear to know the book better than I do. But still, you have to talk about it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
That's why people read books. You get to have the real conversation, as opposed to the pseudo-conversations we have in everyday life.
I'm not a go-in-for-the-kill kind of interviewer. It's a great thing to me, that kind of interviewer, but I'm not it. It doesn't play to my strengths at all. I like to interview people who are interested in telling their story and tell it as truthfully as they can.
I talk to my readers on social networking sites, but I never tell them what the book is about. Writing is lonely, so from time to time I talk to them on the Internet. It's like chatting at a bar without leaving your office. I talk with them about a lot of things other than my books.
What happens is I speak to people outside of my circle of friends and they have already formed an opinion of me based on the things that people have written. That is the effect of journalism on my life, and sometimes it isn't very pleasant.
I learned through experience that it doesn't work for me to talk about my personal life. I've had earlier times in my career when I did talk about it.
People are interested in writing, and often there's an unjustifiable sense of people to believe my talking to them for the book is going to accord them any sort of fame. Which it won't. At the same time, they can be more circumspect if they know they're on the record.
Interviews don't go to the core of my life. Everybody knows my life - it's an open book.
As a novelist, I tend to know significantly more about my characters than I do about my friends.
Some interviewees you make friends with and some you don't.
Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.
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