The Questionnaire: Jonathan Lethem

By The QuestionnaireMarch 30, 2012

The Questionnaire: Jonathan Lethem

How do you get up in the morning?


One leg at a time.


 


Do you succumb to nostalgia? 


I'm already pining for the previous question.


 


Do you write long and cut, or short and backfill?


I write long and backfill, except when I write short and cut.


 


Lunch with any three people who ever lived; who do you invite?


Julia Child for the heavy stuff, Alice Waters for some salad, and my grandmother to peel open a tin of sardines.


 


Which classic author would you like to see kicked out of the pantheon?


Alphonse Daudet is horrendously overrated.


 


What's your favorite negative emotion?


Disgust.


 


Title of the book you're probably never going to write, but would kind of like to get around to?


"Fixing Hitchcock".


 


What character or story haunts you?


This fucking one I'm trying to finish at the moment.


 


Does plot matter?


Plot is a chimera. What matters is the plot you imagined you saw. But you never saw one.


 


 

LARB Contributor

The Questionnaire is, as her name suggests, a multifarious and mysterious interlocutor. Chameleon-like, her questions change their color as they approach each new interviewee.

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