<< continued from page 2

Alana: But, so, what have you been reading lately that you've enjoyed?

Jonathan: I actually just finished Animals in Translation , did you ever read that, or hear about it? It's about this autistic woman who is writing about what autistic people and animals might have in common in terms of how they process the world. It's really interesting, I recommend it.

Alana: Do you tend more toward non-fiction reading?

Jonathan: I do. I actually just read Animal Liberation for the first time. You ever read that? You've heard about it, though? It's a really good book. Peter Singer. He's an interesting guy, just the things he has to say, no one really writes like he does, talks like he does.

Alana: I feel bad because I have a constantly growing list of things I ought to have read. There's always the nervousness that you're not literate enough and you haven't read enough.

Jonathan: There's always more time.

Alana: Do you read poetry?

Jonathan: Yeah. I do. I just read the Charles Simic Collected Poems , which I really loved.

Alana: It's harder I think to talk about poetry than it is to talk about fiction or about novels.

Jonathan: ... yeah, much harder.

Alana: ... because a lot of times poetry gets more to be associated with the poet, you know. You'll read a poet's body of work and it's harder to say, well, I liked this poem and I liked that poem, but I didn't like these , whereas with a novelist you can say, oh, I liked this novel and didn't care for that one.

Jonathan: Also poetry is, more than novels, not about anything. It's just about itself. I mean, I feel that novels are that way too, but you can always kind of say what.

Alana: ... what they're about?

Jonathan: ... you can't create a synopsis of the poem. Not easily.

Alana: One of my favorite books is Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband ... It's twenty-nine poems in a sequence but it also has a narrative. It's really about this woman and the way her marriage sort of falls apart. It's one of those huge poems that tells a story, but it is also a poem , and has beautiful moments that you find more in poetry where something is said very succinctly.

Jonathan: I liked The Autobiography of Red , which is along the same lines.

Alana: Yeah, I'm working on reading all of her. I'm working on reading all of lots of people.

(long pause)

Alana: I always feel bad when I'm interviewing because I feel like I can't have a normal person conversation.

Jonathan: ... right.

Alana: I'm almost feel like I'm at work.

Jonathan: (laughs) Right.

Alana: It's difficult even to talk about nice things, and no matter how well it goes there's always this weird well-what-do-I-do-now panic.

Jonathan: How often do you interview?

Alana: Not very. I was deemed the young hipster on the staff, so I got to come talk to you.

Jonathan: It's funny that that's who they think should come talk to me.

Alana: Oh, there were other people interested! I work with another magazine, affiliated with Boston University, focusing on literary criticism. One of the other girls on staff had just read Everything Is Illuminated and was therefore excited to learn that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was coming out. She bought it the first day it was available, read it, and wrote an essay analyzing all the different ways the words appear on the page. It's not particularly long but it's really interesting.

Jonathan: I would love to see it. It came out already?

Alana: Not yet!

Jonathan: I would love to see that somehow.

Alana: I'll make sure that they send it to you. But anyway, that's to the point that lots of people around have been talking about your books. I'm sure you realize that lots of people in of the literary world are talking about it, and-I dunno, I feel bad, or not bad, but-well, not everyone has nice things to say

Jonathan: ... yeah.

Alana: And I'm sure that gets tedious.

Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I do appreciate it, so thank you. Being prepared for it is, uh. I was warned many, many, many times, before my first book was out, that when my second book was out, it was gonna be a tough ride.

Alana: Right.

Jonathan: But it actually hasn't been that tough a ride. It's been. really nice! I've been having a really good time.

Alana: That's good.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Alana: One thing, lots of people have felt like you got a bad rap with that interview in [publication].

Jonathan: Yeah.

Alana: That that sort of painted you as. well, I'm sure you've read it.

Jonathan: Yeah yeah yeah.

Alana: I don't know if it's cheating for an interviewer to talk about other interviews?

Jonathan: No, no. Look, I think she was writing about herself. But. what can you say? Nothing to say now.

Alana: It's always hard to write about someone else and not have a certain amount of yourself involved. A certain delicate balance as to how much to talk about that.

Another thing. People have been making a big deal about how young you are. Do you feel pressure because you're young? As if you have to map your whole literary life out in front of you?

Jonathan: No, I feel no pressure. I mean if I were eighty, I'd feel pressure. It feels like there's so much time to figure out what I'm doing, and make mistakes and correct them, and change and explore different things. But obviously yeah, it's something people like to talk about.

Alana: What do you want to do for the rest of your life?-as massive a question as that is. Would you want to just keep writing, or go into editing, or teaching.

Jonathan: I have no idea! I really have no idea. I feel like I'm at a moment now, right now, where I just don't have the faintest clue what I'm going to do next. Honestly. It's kind of a great feeling. Just driving, you know, this morning, I was thinking, what should I do? Like, I would love to write this kind of book, I would love to write that kind of book, I would love to. maybe I would love to not write a book but to do something completely different.

(long pause while some a pair of celebrities are seated at the next table)

Jonathan: Hmm. In fact, this kind of lettuce isn't even good for you, right?

Alana: Prolly not.

Jonathan: It's just like, nutritionally indifferent?

Alana: It's supposed to be good for you, though, to eat salad after a meal. Because it's sort of watery?

Jonathan: And it gets stuff out?

Alana: Yeah.

Jonathan: That's interesting.

Alana: Also, the first toilet stall in a bathroom is the least used.

Jonathan: Because people avoid it? Interesting. (pause) Is that true?

Alana: I think so. I read it in Readers' Digest.

Jonathan: And the handicapped one is probably the most used.

Alana: Probably. I always like the handicapped one because it's bigger. You don't feel so cramped.

Jonathan: Right.

Alana: But the first one, most people will walk past. They've done studies where they monitor people in bathrooms to see if they wash their hands or not. Which is sort of creepy.

Jonathan: That's very creepy.

Alana: Yeah.

Jonathan: I'm going to be looking for cameras the next time. (pause) How's your sandwich?

Alana: Lovely. Very good. I like eggplant a lot, so.

Jonathan: I do sometimes and sometimes I don't.

Alana: Do you get nervous when you read aloud?

Jonathan: Yeah. Less than I used to. I used to get very nervous, to the point of it being probably hard to watch.

Alana: ... right.

Jonathan: Now I can get up and do what I have to do.

Alana: Have people said weird things to you after readings, interesting or funny things?

Jonathan: Very consistently.

End.