I interviewed Stephen Dixon by mail. My letter to him is nervous and indecisive, trying to ask good, bold questions and then apologizing for asking them. His response, in gradient typewriter ink, melted me down and then stabbed me in the best way. I read Meyer, loved it, wondered what Stephen Dixon would really be like. Then, in the space of a couple days, I got all these very personal and un-flashy flashes of him. A voicemail to let me know he’d put his letter in the mail; the letter itself, with fragments of a novel in progress typed on the back (“he does think there was a light fall of snow”).
I’ll tell you what I think you need to know about Stephen Dixon, and then let you read his letter. It’s so good on its own, uncluttered by my thinking. Stephen Dixon has written 27 books, taught at Johns Hopkins, won awards for his fiction, and become a McSweeney’s beloved. He retired last year and he’s around 70 years-old. He’s racked up lots of praise, all of which notes how guileless and readable his work is despite being experimental and “avant gardist.” He’s got a gentle kind of humor we can all relate to and, bottom line, he just writes a lot, doggedly, and people are fascinated by that.
Meyer tells the story of a aging writer who is trying to plow and circle his way out of writer’s block by simply writing what’s in his mind (“Let’s see, he thinks; maybe something’s in there”). What results is like a story cycle, with memories told and retold, feelings examined and reexamined. A whole life stands before you on wobbly legs. Yet, the book is supremely digestible, I think because it is intimate and true to the way people think; in other words, his form is unique but he’s not just making stuff up.
Jan 7, 08
Dear Alisha:
Firstly, let me say I’m participating in this interview more because my publisher wants me to than that I want to. I feel that way because I’m not very good at explaining myself and work habits and why I write and what I write about, and I’m absolutely terrible at explaining or deciphering any one particular book.
Yes, it’s all in the book, all of what I wanted to say and how I went about saying it. Each chapter is linked, and the book shows how much I’m more interested in structure and time and tenses than in telling a story. I tell a story, or Meyer, perhaps my stand-in, tries to tell a story, and perhaps the story is that there is no story and he finds no way of telling it.
The last chapter sort of grabs up the preceding chapter and if my ways and nonstory aren’t evident by then, it emphasizes it now.
But don’t be discouraged. You sound very intelligent and astute and your questions are very good and I’m sure your work will go well and I won’t end up feeling I’ve embarrassed myself in writing once more. What’s wrong, in other words, is not the interviewer but the interviewee. Also, know that although I’m retired as of July 1st of last year, I have less time to work on my work because of a number of personal circumstances at home, one of which isn’t that I’m more fatigued with age. I feel good; it’s other things.
The novel might, in part, be about aging. But that’s not it at all. What I wanted to do was tell a story and bring forth a life and history of that life by writing around it all. Things slip in, what he was like when he was much younger, his work, his relationship with his wife, his interest in sex and creativity and his frustrations when he finds he’s not working on anything, or hasn’t for a week or more.
The latter is something how I’ve felt, but I don’t know if I feel that way anymore. I am still an obsessive writer but not as much. I love writing and it is the time when I am most happy and content with myself. I love making up things or retelling things or going ever deeper into things with each work, and what better activity for that than fiction writing?
The repetition you speak about is more a deepening.
I think your take on my novel is fine and sharp, but I’ve heard a number of takes on it and they’re all good. We don’t all see the same thing in a work of fiction.
Question two; no, I don’t have that urge. I just don’t enjoy answering questions about my work. It takes time, the taking of time away from the little time I have–not lifetime but worktime–to write. But I’m answering your questions, or circumventing them, and not disliking the experience. What sort of questions do I like to be asked? None, about my work, although if I were forced at gunpoint to cite one it would be “the mechanics of how I work.”
Question 3; the plain speech is something I’ve gravitated to as a writer. My writing used to be composed, in part, of a lot more complicated and even tricky speech. I am very specific as a writer. I tell my stories mostly through dialogue or paraphrase. I love plain speech and very accessible writing. Clear, unpretentious, genuine writing. I hate flowery writing, artificial writing, familiar writing. It’s why I can’t read most fiction, contemporary fiction. I usually feel I’ve read it before, the story and the writing.
Now, I repeat myself considerably in my fiction. But as I said, its easier to relive in fiction an experience I’ve already written about in my fiction, because then, to repeat myself, not only can I go deeper into the experience but by repeating myself it shows how important that experience is in my fiction. Meeting for the first time his wife is an example. In my work in progress–I really call it a page in progress, since some pages take a 100 takes and a week to write. But that meeting, that first meeting, which sometimes replicates the first meeting with the woman who was, three years later, to become my wife, is the most important meeting of my life. I am telling it in a different way this time, in my new novel, His Wife Leaves Him, where they meet at the elevator after the party, rather than at the party. But I love that experience and will probably be writing about it the rest of my life.
The writing of Meyer, Q 4, wasn’t effortless. It was arduous at times, almost always pleasurable, and the trick was to make it seem as if it were effortless, written effortlessly. It sometimes isn’t easy to simplify and connect chapters. To go deeper while making it look easy. I wanted Meyer to be a good effortless read and a funny emotional story. If you noticed, the wife is almost never shown but his feelings for her are evident.
You mention I go from past to present; but you forgot to allude to the conditional. A lot of my writing is about the conditional. What if and so on.
What avenues did Meyer lead me to in my writing? Nothing much. Once a novel or story’s finished, I forget it and start something else, usually the next day, and find out what I want to write about. One word leads to another; one line to another line. One long paragraph to the next. One chapter to the following chapter, and finally, one book to the next. But I try to make it all new and fresh and original.
Best and thanks,
Stephen
I have a lot of thoughts about some of the things he touches on, especially “plain speech” and being “more interested in structure and time and tenses than in telling a story,” but I think its better to just leave it at this for now: read his book(s). Also, what’s your favorite part/line? This letter is ripe for some found poetry.
What follows is my letter. Read if you’d like, but its wholly unnecessary.
Dear Mr. Dixon,
Thank you for the opportunity to interview you, and for the pleasure of reading Meyer. Meyer is my first exposure to your work. What a lucky gig–I get a free copy of a good book mailed to me and then I get the author’s address so I can continue the conversation begun in my head while reading. Whatever questions I have can go immediately to paper and into the mail, with some promise of an answer. I have to admit that I feel a bit stumped by all this freedom. I don’t know how one should structure a letter like this. Do you need to know some things about myself? I should think so. I am a 22 year-old girl, recently graduated from college, living with my parents and one of my two brothers in Santa Barbara, California, the town where I was born. I work in the box office of a theatre company and try to spend my free time writing and reading. I have a blog, which is where this interview will end up. I think about aging way more than a 22 year-old should, so Meyer had my attention.
The thing I really liked about Meyer is the way you presented old age–if that’s what you were doing–as a sort of rhythm rather than a particular image or experience. Aging, as mediated by Meyer, is private and full of repetition. It’s this repetition, and his need to communicate, that also pushes Meyer to invent. Aging is the process that both threatens and invigorates his creativity. What do you think of my take on your novel? I guess I’m just gonna come right out and ask, is Meyer an account of what getting old is like, or is it saying something about what getting old is, what it means. (This is probably not the kind of question you like to be asked, you can just say something unrelated if you prefer.)
Follow up question: Do you have the urge to answer every question about your books with, “Read the book”? If yes, how do you deal with this? If no, or sometimes, what sort of question do you like to be asked?
If we are getting to know Meyer through his writing, then it’s the anxious yet deliberate pace, the circular pattern of revisions, and the stubborn attachment to plain speech that are most telling. Is this the person that you wanted to show? What does his writing conceal?
Tell me something about the process of writing Meyer. While reading it, it’s hard to imagine that it could’ve been anything but effortless. At the same time, it shows a great deal of restraint. Was it very difficult or very easy? Was it hard to balance writing about the past while making the story about the present?
What’s next? What avenues and new ideas did Meyer lead you to in your writing?
I’m done asking questions. Of course, feel free to add to or subtract from this interview as you see fit. It’s difficult to ask questions about a semi-autobiographical book without making approximations of the ‘truth.’ Correct and clarify as needed. Again, thank you so much for your time. I really can’t wait for your response, and to read more of your work.
Sincerely,
Alisha Adams
Great stuff. Dixon’s fantastic, isn’t he? You should check out “Old Friends” -
thanks for sharing.
I can’t wait to be in one place long enough to subscribe to things, like mcsweeney’s, and go to the library. I mean, I can wait. The point is, I appreciate your interview series here. Keep it uppp.
very awesome. dixon has long been one of my favorites and i am about to ‘interview’ him also. i havent been able to do it yet because i am too nervous. but this made me feel good to read and now i think i can. thank you and nice work.