Interview: Andrew Sean Greer

Portions of this interview have been condensed or lightly edited for clarity.

Xavier Blackwell-Lipkind: I’m a student. Can you talk a bit about how (and whether) the writing teachers with whom you studied during your undergraduate and graduate years changed the way you approach your work? Or the way you think about writing?

Andrew Sean Greer: I remember I had two professors who had a big impact. One was Robert Coover. He was an experimental writer—kind of left over from the 70s, when they did that kind of stuff. You know, printed out stories on playing cards and would deal a deck, that kind of thing. And he was just really fun. I took a course where the Apple Macintosh had just come out, a few years before, and they’d just come up with this thing called hyperlink, which was a little arrow above a word, and if you clicked on it, it would send you to another document. It’s the web, right? The internet. But that was the first phase of it—we were like, “Oh, you could click on a word and it would go…” It wasn’t on the word, it was on this weird arrow thing. So Coover was like, “Why don’t I teach a class where we use that and see what stories we write?” And so it was crazy. It was just super fun. Now, people have tried internet fiction in all kinds of ways, but we were, like, the first ones to try it. That sort of joy was very infectious. Just the “see what happens” feeling, instead of trying to be famous, or to make a lot of money, or to change the world. The other one was a writer I’m still good friends with, Edmund White. At the time, he was the age I am now. He had written a book called A Boy’s Own Story, which was really one of the first gay novels to hit the mainstream—and sort of the last for a while. You know, there was sort of a moment in the 80s and then it disappeared. So he was someone who was really bold, and also funny. The way he talked about books wasn’t literary theory or anything. He had a lot of gossip about the writers, and he had his own take on the stories. And that individuality, that eccentricity that both of them had showed me, like, this is what artists are. These were not academics. These were writers. They were both incredibly supportive and just seemed to be having a good time.

XB: You’ve also been a teacher yourself. What was the transition from student to teacher like for you? How did you experience the shift from being identified as a “student” of writing to being named a “teacher” of it?

AG: You come across a weird transition. It’s an impostor syndrome moment. I would wear my glasses and a button-up shirt and try to look older when I was first a teacher, when I was like twenty-three. Just to kind of try to pretend to be a teacher, because I didn’t know what I was doing. But the thing is, you always know what you’re doing, and the more that I teach, the less I feel I have to spout wisdom, and the more I feel I just have to encourage them to—honestly, to have a good time. I just taught a class at Stanford, I guess it’s almost a year ago now. They were so tied up in their English classes, in looking at literature from a critical perspective. Being a writer is the other side of a looking glass. You have to let all of that go. And fail, and fail in public. And that’s terrifying for a student, because they’re in a group where they don’t necessarily trust everyone to keep this information in the class. My job was to create a room where everyone trusted each other, and where we would do exercises and talk about books in a way that was just a lot more fun. I mean, fun is a weird way to talk about it, but I think when you’re a student, writing is fun. It definitely should be.

XB: That makes me want to ask you an old and overwrought question, but one that’s maybe of interest to the readers of a college literary magazine: Can writing be taught? And have your thoughts on the “teachability” of writing changed as you have sat in the classroom as both student and teacher?

AG: I think it has changed. It’s gone up and down. When I was a student, I felt it could be taught, simply because I would hear things that were really helpful information. And even as a teacher, I can tell students—I can give them information like, “You actually don’t have to write a scene beginning with someone entering a room and ending when they leave the room. You can say, ‘We talked for five hours and then he suddenly turned to me.’” You know, it’s not a TV show. There’s all these other techniques you may not know about, because you’re not reading books to try to learn them yet. So I can give a lot of shortcuts, and that’s what teachers did for me. They would give me advice that seemed obvious to them. I remember Edmund White saying, “If you’re describing something gross, like gangrene on a leg, don’t describe it in gross ways. Describe it in a way that works against it. Like say, ‘The gangrene was like ivy around a column,’ so that it’s not too much. And in the same way, if something’s beautiful, don’t say, you know, ‘Her face sparkled like angelic diamonds.’” It’s really helpful. I think about that all the time.

XB: I’d like to shift gears a bit. You’ve written several novels now about travel, about people who go places and learn things, or don’t, along the way. You’ve recently been in India, right?

AG: Oh my god, yeah, I just got back.

XB: And you divide your time between Italy and San Francisco—locations that feature prominently in Less. What do you see as the value of that sort of displacement? In your own life, to what extent do you find that going to new places exposes you to new things, or to new ideas, that serve your writing?

AG: I can just speak for myself. The mode where I am a good writer is the one where I’m paying attention to every detail around me, so that I’m listening to conversations and someone tells a story and I’m like, “Maybe I can use that in my novel.” Where I’m just hyperaware. That’s my writing mode. And the quickest way to get there is to be in a place where you don’t know what the hell is going on. You know, your senses are alert. And travel is a great way to do it. In India, I had my notebook out, taking notes all the time. And again, I’m not taking notes on the literary festival I was at. I’m taking notes on—what was something I would have used? Like, when the maharaja was crowned, his wife would be behind a screen, but he would be tied to her with a string, because everything that happened to him happened to her as well. And I thought, “I wouldn’t have thought of that. Let me file that away.” Not to put in a story but to use as a metaphor. It just was something interesting. So travel makes me aware of that. And if I just sit in the same room I’ve lived in for twenty-five years in San Francisco, it doesn’t happen.

XB: Is there a difference for you between the international journey that you chronicle in Less and the domestic journey that characterizes Less Is Lost? What changes when Less is traveling within the confines of the United States? Is there still that sense of “not knowing what the hell is going on”

AG: I think it’s a different “not knowing.” The first one was sort of the humbling experience of realizing that the way that you’ve always been taught to do things is not the only way, and there’s a lot of different ways to use a subway ticket, or find a sidewalk, or flush a toilet. And you just realize, like, “Wow, there’s a lot of variety out there, and it’s all good.” But when you’re traveling in your own country, you’re implicated in it. And so it’s harder to pretend, like, “Oh, gee, I’m just a traveler from abroad,” because if something’s wrong and you’re not fixing it, it’s a problem. But it’s also funny to be a foreigner in your own country, which is definitely how I feel. I think a lot of people feel that way. Or even a foreigner in a place where you’re supposed to belong. Like, I think I put it in the book, but also for me—a fancy gay bar in New York City? I don’t feel comfortable there. And I’m supposed to! I’m a middle-aged gay guy who has enough money to buy a drink. That’s exactly where I belong. But I’d rather be at a dive bar in Alabama.

XB: When I was preparing for this interview, I found a review of Less Is Lost by Matthew Schneier in The New York Times that presents Less as “a gay novelist of a certain age, with … a roughly equal balance of success and obscurity.” Schneier goes on to introduce you in exactly the same terms. What is your reaction to this conflation of character and author? Are you receptive to attempts to label your work as autofiction?

AG: I think those reviews aren’t for me anyway. I’ve certainly read that review. But I get it so much. I think I reached a certain—I was going to say “age,” but actually what happened was that I reached a point where I figured no one was reading me, it didn’t matter what I did, I could use any material. I think when I was young, I was super conscious of, like, “What’s my mom going to think?” But I remember giving this advice to a friend of mine. She was very worried about using a story, whether it would hurt the person. And I said, “Don’t worry about it. No one’s ever going to read it.” Because that’s the truth about books. I mean, mostly, no one reads them. So it’s not the end of the world. However, when you win a Pulitzer Prize, then people do read it. So for Less Is Lost, I was like, “Oh, man, how do I get back to that place where I didn’t care?” And it was to just not care. So I ignore those comments. Also because I think it’s a misunderstanding of what fiction is. For people who know me, these books—they absolutely recognize me, and recognize things that happened, and then they also are confused, because that person belongs there, and that didn’t happen that way. It’s a total lie if you think of it as autofiction. To look for me in the book… I identify mostly with Freddy’s point of view as a writer. Even though I look a lot like Arthur Less and he’s got so many of my attributes, I don’t identify as much with him. And I don’t like him as much as readers do, I have to say.

XB: You’ve also talked a bit in past interviews about being shy. I tend to be pretty shy, too. Do you think that a certain sort of shyness or reservedness can be a boon as a writer? 

AG: I know so many writers who are—they seem not shy. And I probably seem not shy to you right now, but this is a subject I know really well, I’m in my house, everything’s fine, you’re not going to have, like, a line of attack. That’s perfect for me. Even writers who seem like incredible performers—I also think that’s a performance, it’s an act. I have one too when I get on stage that I’m better at now than I was a long time ago. That isn’t me. You know, it’s a shtick, it’s a sort of armor. You see professors do this all the time. They have a great performance, and then, like, who they are? You don’t know. They’ve just done it so many times. Comedians, too. They’re so funny, but if you actually meet a professional comedian, a stand-up comedian, they’re not funny. They’re awkward. Which is appropriate. That’s the state you have to be in. You have to be sensitive to the world. You can’t just go through with arrogance and bluster. I mean, I guess a lot of people do, but I can’t imagine that’s going to be a good writer. A book written by an arrogant, blustery person? It’s all ego, I wouldn’t like it. You have to be sensitive, the way I guess we are, which is painful. You know, it’s too bad, I don’t recommend it. But it’s the only way. There’s no artist who doesn’t experience that.

XB: You mentioned comedians, so a final question on humor. Less made me laugh harder than I had laughed while reading a book in a long time. Does reading your own writing make you laugh? What’s your relationship as a writer to the parts of your work that other people find so funny?

AG: It totally makes me laugh! I know I shouldn’t say that. What I should say is, “No, I’ve read it so many times.” No! Sometimes I even think back on something I wrote and I tee-hee a little bit, because honestly I’m trying to write it just to amuse myself. Certainly Less, which I really didn’t think anyone would read or publish, I would just think—I mean, I did things that you’re not supposed to do with a piece of literary fiction. You know, I have him—it’s very slapstick—crawling up the side of a building to get in a window. It’s not what you’re supposed to do! They definitely don’t talk about that in class. And I thought, “I think it’s funny, so I’m going to put it in.” I just didn’t hold back. There’s way too many puns, and all of that—you probably have noticed this too as you write. The real payoff in writing is the daily page where you feel you’ve done something, and if I have made a funny joke, I’m very satisfied with the day. And then I will do everything to keep that joke in the book, or move it around. Because they’re kind of hard-won. I’m not actually that witty, I’m not a stand-up comedian in person. But in writing, you have time to make it better. I like that.

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford and the Iowa Writers Workshop, been a TODAY show pick, a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, a judge for the National Book Award, and a winner of the California Book Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. He is the recipient of a NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER | Xavier Blackwell-Lipkind is the Editor-in-Chief of The Yale Literary Magazine.