Q–Your recent children’s books, “Kofi and His Magic” and “My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me,” have been extremely popular. Why did you start writing these?
A–I have a dream to do a series of books for children as wide-ranging as Fodor’s travel books. I have the next book–a little Italian girl who lives in Sienna. And then I would like to do a Lapp boy in northern Sweden. The children are irresistable–they are white with big red roses (for cheeks) and Asian eyes. And I would like to do a prim little girl in Paris. I would like to show the children, from 7 to 10, that human beings, bless our differences, that is what makes us interesting. In truth, we’re all more alike than unalike.
Q–You had a rough upbringing, which you have chronicled powerfully in your writing. You once said, “All my work, my life, everything is about survival.” What did you mean by that?
A–More than just survival. Always to thrive. Not to survive in a mean hole in the ground but to thrive with passion and compassion and humor and style.
Q–Can people of privilege, who live without apparent pain, thrive with this same passion?
A–The obvious trappings of privilege can fool us into thinking a person is living without pain. That is not true. We can look at a number of people born to privilege and see their stark unhappiness. I do believe that a number of folks who are not given the inheritance of things miscalculate and think if they could possess things all would be well. I don’t think that is true at all.
Q–How has fame changed your life?
A–My mother used to say, “I haven’t changed anything except last week’s sauce.”
I am able to do things that I was not able to do without money. I can be much more generous–or my generosity is more tangible. I can say no–but I’ve always been able to say no–no to the brute, no to the batterer, no to the abuser, no, no.
I think I’ve been trying to be present–and fame, which means some success, has helped me to be present–in the world and in this moment.
Q–You spent some time in Cairo, Ill., during the civil rights struggles. Here you are back in Illinois. How have things changed?
A–I think the temper of the world has changed dramatically. We used to really long for the good things, the best things. That which lifted us. In the ’40s, during World War II, everybody, all kids, no matter what their race, if they had never met a Jew, when we heard about Hitler, this was the thing to stop. You had to stop cruelty. For a long time, that was the temper in the country, to stop the bad things. Those whites and Asians who marched in Washingtonn and Selma, Ala., to stop the cruelty of inequity, they felt so good about themselves. Something has changed in our world. An indication of the change is when words like “mother,” “kindness,” “charity” are laughable.
When you mention Cairo, I think of the young men and women who preached-in and prayed-in and swam-in and walked-in, the Freedom Riders and Walkers and Swimmers; white kids and black kids actually went into areas of beaches forbidden to blacks and they swam-in and they were loved and laughed with. And they were cheered on. Something is happening, and we all would be wise to be on guard.
Q–Your work has been influenced by a wide range of people–James Baldwin to Jules Feiffer. What do you read these days?
A–Books just stick to me. I look like a bag woman every time I go into a bookstore. I went to Barbara’s Bookstore to get a Roget’s Thesaurus, just a tiny little paperback, and I came out with bags and bags.
I have three libraries in my home. There is one library upstairs which has first editions and signed books–like Jessica Mitford, M.F.K. Fisher, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Norman Mailer. And then a library of my work. Then the general library is downstairs.
Q–I understand that you leave your home and go to hotel rooms to write.
A–Robert Benchley wrote a piece in which he talked about how to discharge a responsibility of being commissioned to write an article in two weeks. You get the assignment, you call your friends and go out drinking to celebrate the assignment. That’s a couple of days. Then it takes two or three days to get over drinking. And then five days later you are ready to sit down and–“Oh my goodness, the typewriter ribbon. It is so frayed.” And you go out to get some typewriter ribbon and more paper and this or that and have a drink and then you come back, two days later, to really write. Then–“Oh my goodness, what is wrong? This floor needs mopping.” Finally, on the 13th day, you sit down and write.
I’m afraid of those sorts of distractions if I was in my house. So I take a hotel room nearby, and I ask the managers to take everything off the walls. And I put yellow pads in there, Roget’s Thesaurus, dictionary, a Bible and a bottle of sherry and ballpoints. And I try to be there by 6 in the morning and be (writing) by 6:30. I stay there until about 12 unless the work is really flowing, and I’ve never had it flow more than three days a year. It’s hard work, really. And then I go back home, have another shower, walk around, act in the familiar, say how do you do, go shopping, cook–and am really not there. And in the evening, I try to edit what I’m doing. It’s hard.
Q–Is it easier to write today than it was when you began years ago?
A–Nathaniel Hawthorne said that easy reading is damn hard writing. Each time, I could almost weep because each time I am terrified that I will get in that place and no one will be able to get me out. But that is what I do. That is who I am. So I have to have enough courage to go in there.
Q–Can you explain the title of your new book, “Even the Stars Look Lonesome”?
A–It’s all right to be alone. I think it would be a wonderful thing if young people were encouraged to use solitude not to think, not to deduce, not to plan, not to confront, just be. If young people were encouraged to do it earlier, their midlives would be much better. Young people feel they must have company at any cost, and because of that they will pay every cost so that young women will go out and endanger themselves by going to singles bars, to meet whom, what? What ogre? And young men, having unsafe sex at any cost to be in company–risking their very lives.
Q–You once said, “What I would really like said about me is that I dared to love.” What did you mean by that?
A–This goes back to my feeling that something is amiss when “fatherhood,” “charity”–the big words–are laughable. Not only are people afraid to say that they love, they are afraid to love. I love loving life. At the risk of sounding however I sound, I am very glad to be alive. I am not in love with life. I will not live at any cost. But I love it, it’s fantastic. I love itching and scratching the itch. I love to see people laugh. I dare to love.
