[ Music ]
>> Voiceover: Sponsored by
the James Madison Council
and the National
Endowment for the Arts.
[ Music ]
>> Ron Charles: Hello and
welcome to the 2021 Library
of Congress National
Book Festival.
I'm Ron Charles.
I write about books for
the Washington Post.
Before we begin, please remember
that we'll save the
last ten minutes
of this thirty-minute live
conversation for your questions,
which you can start
submitting right now.
I'm here with two of America's
most celebrated fiction writers,
Alice McDermott, author
of "What About the Baby"
and George Saunders, author of
"A Swim in a Pond in the Rain."
Alice and George, welcome.
>> Alice McDermott:
Thank you, Ron.
>> Ron Charles: It's wonderful
that you both released these
illuminating books this year
about writing, this mad pursuit,
and your books complement
each other so wonderfully.
And they're really a
gift to those of us
that will never have a chance
to take a class with you,
so thank you for these books.
Alice, I'd like to
start with you.
You say something in
your book that struck me.
"A fiction writer can
learn nothing useful at all
from reading the work
of book critics."
[ Laughter ]
>> Alice McDermott:
With some exceptions.
You didn't read that part
about the exceptions.
>> Ron Charles: Yeah.
My wife's having that put on
a pillow, but seriously, well,
let's talk about the purpose
of fiction, which is very close
to what both of you
are writing about here.
Alice, you write "I
expect a lot from fiction.
Mine and yours and
everybody else's.
Scenes that burn through
our temple, concerns.
I expect fiction to
be truer than life."
And George, you say that "great
stories ask big questions
like how are we supposed
to be living down here,
and what should we value."
And you suggest that fiction can
help us become more expansive,
generous people.
It's very inspiring
to hear you say that.
I'd like to ask each
of you to expound
on that point, if you would.
Could you start, Alice?
>> Alice McDermott:
On the big questions.
Yes and thank you, Ron.
And a lot of other people
can learn a lot of things
from book critics, maybe
just not fiction writers.
But the rest of the
world out there might.
Yeah, you know, I've
been accused a little bit
of maybe setting the bar too
high in that initial essay
of what I expect from fiction.
But I think those of us who
know the value of fiction know
that there is no
setting the bar too high.
We go to fiction for, there's
something that weirdly enough,
I had a dream last
night about John Updike.
And John Updike has been
in my mind all day long,
and I've been trying to
remember something that he said
about art giving the
spirit space to breathe,
sort of a vacant lot for play.
And I think that's what George
is talking about in his study
of the Russians and I guess
what I'm attempting to say
to aspiring writers that this is
for our spirit, these
works of art.
This is where we go to allow
our spirits to breathe.
>> Ron Charles: That's nice.
That's nice.
George, how about you?
You make strong demands
on fiction too.
>> George Saunders: I
think that's beautiful.
And you know, I think it's
a little bit sacramental
in the sense that if you're
reading a story, say by Chekhov,
and he nudges you to be
marginally more generous
than usual or kind
of do a doubletake
about something you would
normally not even notice.
Then the beautiful thing is
you've noticed that you have
that capacity, or
you've been reminded
that you have that capacity.
And then so much like, you know,
going to church or meditation,
you go into the rest of your day
thinking, "Oh, I have capacities
that I don't always
use, but they're real.
And so maybe I could start to
use them a little more often."
That's one thing, but
I always kind of try
to ground myself
by saying, "Okay."
If I pick up a Chekhov story
or I pick up a novel by Alice,
I observe my mind
at the beginning.
Where is it when I start?
And then I observe
it when I'm done,
and that really is the essence.
Whatever happens, it happens
in that way, and I do notice,
you know, at the most
modest end of things,
I always feel more alert
at the end of that,
more alert to the
world and more alert
to maybe my own sometimes
facile judgement.
So I think that's a good
thing maybe, I think.
>> Ron Charles: Yeah,
definitely.
You both emphasize that point.
You both write that what you --
I hope you don't mind me calling
it a moral point of view --
but that is you believe
as George says
that every human being
is worthy of attention.
And Alice says we've been
given a book with a baby in it.
We damn well want that baby
accounted for by the end.
I mean, fiction is one of the
ways we engage our attention
and account for others.
Right? So when we start
with that premise,
that implies some pretty
weighty responsibilities
for a fiction writer.
I'm curious how your young
students respond to that --
I don't want to call
it a burden,
but it is a responsibility.
>> George Saunders: Well,
we talked about this today.
I notice they always
are a little relieved
when you reassure them that
their job is to account
for the beauty in
life and also the evil
and to be sort of celebratory.
You know, I think there's always
that, when we're young writers,
I think we're a little worried
about being perceived as corny.
And so a kind of young
writer move is to hold back
on all the positive valances
and emphasize the dark,
fearful, negative ones.
But I notice that my students
are always a little relieved
when I say, "Really, what
I want to feel is you there
in your entirety, and
you like being alive."
Not always and sometimes it's
complicated, but basically,
those positive valances
are not only allowed
but they're maybe the
hardest thing to get.
And I can always feel them
being a little relieved,
like oh, good.
You know?
>> Ron Charles: That's nice.
Alice?
>> Alice McDermott: Yeah and
I think we have the benefit,
especially teaching graduate
students but even undergrads
who choose to take a creative
writing course in fiction.
We have an audience.
We have a classroom
filled with people
who have been moved by fiction.
They wouldn't be there
if they hadn't been,
so it's not that you're suddenly
telling them something they
didn't know, that we go to
literature for those big themes.
And we go to literature to
find out what it is to be human
and how to be more human.
They already know that.
That's why they want to try
their hand, and I think what,
where the relief comes in
when you tell them, "Yes,
those lofty goals that you
feel a little sheepish about,
those are good things.
Go ahead. Go for them."
>> Ron Charles: That's nice.
Both of you emphasize the
importance of intentionality
of placing details on
purpose in a story.
For some reason, George,
you call this "the
cornfield principle" based
on the advice you got
from a movie producer.
Both of you are equally
attentive to the role
of surprise and inspiration
to what George calls
"the ritual banality avoidance."
So I'm curious how you
negotiate that tension
between intentionality and
spontaneity when you're writing?
>> George Saunders: Alice,
do you want to take that one?
[ Laughter ]
>> Alice McDermott:
I love the cornfield.
Well, I think it's a matter of,
you know, this thing that we
like to refer to in a mysterious
way as the magical things
that happen in the
midst of composition.
I think you're in trouble
when you're looking
with too much focus
for those details
that will carry multiple
meanings
or that will change everything,
but when you're just trying
to create a world and
write a decent sentence
and get the rhythm of your
voice right and keep the reader
with you, those things find
their way into the writing.
And the writer needs
only to recognize them,
so there is a kind of,
you know, we're working
with this wonderful
language that in many ways
in initial drafts is
just an incantation.
We're just using words to try
to make the story come to life,
and it's only after we
have worked at the words
that we begin to see
that we've had, actually,
there are details there that
do have multiple meaning.
But we never would
have found them
if we weren't just doing
the hard work of craft.
>> Ron Charles: Interesting.
>> Alice McDermott:
You can't plant them.
>> Ron Charles: Right, right.
>> George Saunders: I would
totally agree with that and say
for me, you might want
to distinguish being
two different kinds
of intentionality.
There's the, in my practice
anyway, the bad kind which is,
you know, I'm going to make
the moon a metaphor for K-Mart
or whatever, you know.
And then you plan it all out in
advance, and that I don't trust.
But there's also the
intentionality that comes with,
as Alice said, you've
done this thing.
You've been in this zone,
and you come out of it.
And you look at it,
and you bless it.
And I think that's where the
intentionality comes in for me.
If I look at a draft and I'm
like, "Yeah, I don't know.
There's a little more light in
there, but I can't get it out."
Then I haven't blessed
it yet and go
through it again and again.
There will come a point
where I feel like, "Yes,
everything is there I intend,"
in the sense that I bless it.
I'm not sure I could
account for everything
or explain everything.
Some of it I might not even
see, but by reading through it
from the beginning to the end
and feeling good
about it, I bless it.
And that's the kind
of intentionality
that includes rational
and suprarational parts
of the process, I think.
>> Ron Charles: What
do you mean bless it?
Why do you use that
sanctified word?
>> George Saunders: It's kind of
like if you, I think I mentioned
in the book, if you're throwing
a party and you're running
around all day and you're
arranging the doilies
and everything and picking the
music and then just as you're
about to invite the guests
in, i.e. send the story
out to the magazine,
you just take a look.
And you go, "Yes."
You know, everything,
I'm seeing it.
In this case, I read the story
from the beginning to end,
and I get a feeling
like yes, I bless it.
And whatever is in there,
even if I don't know about it,
I'm for it, something like that.
Very intuitive.
>> Ron Charles: Alice,
do you feel that way too
when you finally
send something off?
>> Alice McDermott: Oh, I guess
I feel a little bit more get rid
of it.
Maybe it's the way you
send your kids out.
You bless them, but then
you're glad to see them leave.
And I think some of it is
that sense of at this moment,
in this story, with
these characters,
with all the things I have
proposed and struggled
over sentence by
sentence by sentence,
I have reached the
point where I can say,
"That's the best I can do.
That's the story that
wanted to be told.
That's how I was
able to tell it.
I told the story that
was given to me."
I'm paraphrasing the wonderful
Philip Levine who said,
you know, "I write what
I was given to write.
I've written the story
I was given to write,
and I can't think about it now.
Now it's out the door."
[ Laughter ]
>> Ron Charles: Both of
you write great sentences
and great lines, and both your
books celebrate great sentences
and great lines in
a very specific way.
Is that because you're just
naturally poetic, clever people,
or is this the result of
careful, hard revision
of those sentences
over and over again
until you get the sentences
where you want them to be?
[ Multiple Speakers ]
>> Ron Charles: Alice, go ahead.
Or George, go ahead.
>> George Saunders: I'm sorry.
I've had a little delay.
For me, it's that,
what you said.
It's just you might be
inspired the first time,
but you might not.
So then you rework it.
And I think of a story as being,
you know, 7,000 sentences,
and my job is to kind of
make sure that I've sort
of tweaked each one to be
the most like I want it to be
and thereby infuse the
story with micro choices.
So, and for me, that
really only happens
on a sentence level by ear.
A sentence comes to me.
I'm like, "Eh, that
sounds a little banal
or that sounds a little
inaccurate, or it sounds
like I'm infusing it with
lyricality as a trick."
Then just that constant
readjusting
of the sentences is what
makes the whole story for me,
but it is a lot of tweaking and
work and expressing your opinion
over and over again every
time you come to the sentence.
>> Ron Charles: Alice, do the
lines just come to you like
"Kubla Khan" all fully formed?
>> Alice McDermott:
Nothing nice.
Wouldn't I love that?
There's a wonderful something
that Eudora Welty said
that I have hit over the head
of many students, but I love it.
It's sort of a great
definition of being in the zone,
and she said, "You reach that
moment where you know the sound
of the next sentence
before you know the words."
That sense of you hear
it, just as George said.
You hear it.
Now, you have to find the
words, but somehow, it's,
the form is already there.
It's the thing I
look for as a reader.
I mean, I read fiction
as much for the sentences
that make me want to jump up
and down and grab somebody
by the collar and say, "Read
this," as much for story
or character or information
or anything else.
>> Ron Charles: Then how
do you avoid that sense
of every sentence being
worked over, and reading is
like sipping cream where
it's just, you know,
every line is selfconsciously
poetic.
How do you avoid that
while you're trying
to get every sentence perfect?
>> George Saunders: I think
that's part of the work is
to sometimes take
the fancy clothes off
and get the sentence
back to its underwear.
You know, you're aware, I mean,
your stylistic control
extends even to that,
so if you have a bit
of a pompous sentence,
you might say, "No, no, no.
I can't have that."
And then you take it down to
the basics, so there's nothing
that isn't included in that.
What we're calling crafting
beautiful sentences also
includes, for example,
purposely making a very crude
basic sentence.
You can, it's like
a music producer.
You know, you can purposely
de-tune the guitars if you want.
It's still intentional.
>> Ron Charles: Alice?
>> Alice McDermott: Yeah,
and I think there has
to be a sense of inevitability.
It's not a sentence that just
hangs in the air somewhere.
It's a sentence that's
part of an ongoing story,
that's part of a
character's life,
that's part of all the other
things that you're juggling
as you're trying
to tell a story.
So I think there, you do have
to lose that self-consciousness
of how beautiful is this.
Another thing [inaudible]
says is that,
you know, there's no beauty.
All beauty has something of
the inadvertent about it,
so it's not that I'm going
after a beautiful sentence.
I'm going after the right
words to add to this story
so that character comes to life,
and the world is still spinning.
And so you do have that
sense of inevitability.
George points out
in his book talking
about Tolstoy how Tolstoy
just adds up facts.
That's what he's giving you.
He's not giving you
beautiful sentences.
He's giving you facts, and story
is coming to life through them.
You don't pause to
say, "Oh, boy.
That's a gorgeous sentence."
You just take in the facts.
There's a sense of this is
how this story must be told.
It's absolutely inevitable.
It could never have
been told another way.
>> George Saunders: I can't
remember how much of this
in your book, Alice, but one
of the most beautiful
sentences is Jesus wept.
You know?
>> Alice McDermott: Right.
>> George Saunders:
Because it comes
at exactly the right moment,
and it's the shortest it
could be, you know, that.
>> Ron Charles: Right.
>> Alice McDermott: Right,
although my mother used to use
that sentence in other context,
and it wasn't that beautiful.
If she saw my room, Jesus wept
when he saw the state
of your drawers.
So context is everything.
>> Ron Charles: I want
to talk about research.
You mentioned it earlier.
Alice, in your collection,
you write, I think humorously,
"I write about a culture I
know fairly well in order
to resist the siren
song of research."
But I suspect you're being
at least partially
tongue in cheek there.
You must do research to get
all those 20th Century details
just right.
And George, your novel
about Lincoln weighted
in probably the most studied
period of American history,
so you must have done research.
Tell me how you integrate that
work into the creative process.
>> Alice McDermott: George, go.
>> George Saunders: Okay.
Well, I, you know, kind of
tiptoed up to the vast ocean
of Lincoln research
and got really scared.
And I thought, "Okay.
Since it's a novel supposedly
or something like a novel,
let's not go looking for
something until we need it."
You know, like if I need
an illustration of X
for dramatic purposes,
I'll go get it.
So that's mostly what I did.
I avoided research except
when the dramatic structure
told me I needed something,
and then after a few years of
doing that kind of research,
I had a few things
that I'd stumbled
on that I thought
might be fun to use.
But again, I kind of,
you know, like a bouncer,
I kind of kept it outside
the rope until it was needed.
So that way you're not just, you
know, you're really not claiming
to be an expert in the period,
but you're an expert at darting
into the period to get out
what your circus needs.
You know? Otherwise, it
would have been, you know,
eighty years of research.
>> Ron Charles: Alice,
how about you?
>> Alice McDermott:
Yeah, I agree with that.
There is that sense of
plug in what you know,
take a wild guess, but don't
stop, again, story and character
and everything that's evolving.
But there are times when,
you know, I face a character
and say, "I need to
know what she knows,
and I don't know a thing."
I had a character
in my last novel
who was an expert
laundress in the early part
of the 20th Century, and I
knew she knew an awful lot.
And I knew I had to find
out what she knew before I
could take her any further
into the story, so I had great
fun tracking down laundry guides
for housewives from 1909.
I didn't test them all out,
although some people told
me they have tested them
and they indeed were
true, but that's the kind
of research I simply had
to do to enter the head
of the character because I knew
how much she knew that I didn't.
>> Ron Charles: Wow,
interesting.
You're both so generous and
attentive to other writers,
both current and past, and
it's a testament to your belief
that good writers need
to be avid readers.
The theme of the National Book
Festival this year, as you know,
is open a book, open the world.
How have books opened the
world for you, George?
>> George Saunders: Well, you
know, in kind of a funny way,
I was, I grew up in Chicago and
had kind of stopped reading,
and I was going to
be a musician.
That was the plan, and
then I read what I now know
to be a terrible book, which is
"Atlas Shrugged," or at least,
you know, kind of a
weird-hearted book.
So, but it was a thousand
pages, and I read it.
And it did that thing that
even clumsy fiction can do
which is make people
start moving
around an imaginary
building and so on,
and that's why I went
to college actually.
I wasn't going to go, and
then I read that book,
and in this very
strange, comical way,
I just thought, "Oh, wow.
That's amazing intellectual
stuff.
You know, I could
go to college."
And I had this kind of
weird image of just walking
across a campus with "Atlas
Shrugged" under my arms,
you know, and so in
that really crude way,
it just got me the
life that I have now.
And I think since then,
better books have just been
like a carrot on a stick,
reminding me that the state
of my awareness at the moment is
both inadequate and expandable.
So you read Tolstoy or
you read Toni Morrison
or you read Grace Paley,
and you think, "Oh, yeah.
I'm kind of a little
frozen as a dummy right now,
you know, just out of habit."
But the capacity for
understanding is infinite,
so the books just sort of,
for me, they kind of tap
on the windshield, you know,
on the window of the car
in which I'm asleep
and says, "Hey, buddy,
you know, life is going by.
Try to look alive."
And it's tapping over and over.
It happened with these seven
Russian stories every time I
went through them.
>> Ron Charles: That's great.
Alice, how about you?
>> Alice McDermott: You know,
looking back from this great age
of mine, I often feel grateful
that I started reading
before anybody thought
to ask a young reader
to look for herself
in the novels that she reads.
I'm so glad nobody told me
that was supposed to be a goal
of reading, so I fell
into reading delighted
that I didn't find myself, that
I could leave myself behind,
that it wasn't about me.
And yet, I understood
these people,
and I recognized something
that I had not really
experienced but as if I had.
So for me, it was always that
dwelling in another sensibility
that shouldn't have anything to
do with my life and yet has more
to do with my life than anything
else I've ever experienced.
>> George Saunders: What
a beautiful lesson that is
when that happens,
you know, when you see
that these apparent boundaries
that we have aren't actually
as solid as we think.
That's beautifully put.
>> Ron Charles: That is great.
We have a bunch of
questions here,
and I've taken too much time
because I could talk
to you guys forever.
Marion wants to know is there
a particular book or author
that inspired you
to become a writer?
George? Well, you already
mentioned yours, George.
It was Ayn Rand.
You can take that to your grave.
Alice, how about you?
>> George Saunders: It was "In
Our Time" by Hemingway was kind
of the perfect book for a
young, you know, I thought, "Oh,
if you're an author,
you get to go
to do cool adventurous things."
So that was big for
me too "In Our Time."
>> Ron Charles: Alice?
>> Alice McDermott: I
think there are two books.
One, kind of the "In Our Time"
equivalent was Moss Hart's
"Act One," his autobiography,
which made me want
to be a playwright
because it looked
like so much fun
to be on Broadway.
But the book that made me
really want to be a writer,
and the writer I suppose
I'm still trying to be,
was "A Russian Beauty,"
Nabokov's short stories
that I took down from the shelf
of the Elmont Public Library
when I was between
semesters as an undergrad,
sort of vaguely thinking
I wanted to write
and telling myself that I would
go to the library and take
down from the shelf a book
by any writer whose name I had
heard but I had never read.
And I took down those
stories, and I took them home.
And I read them on
the front porch,
and I have a vivid
recollection of saying,
"If you spent your whole
life trying to write a story
as beautiful as any one of
these, and even if you failed,
what a great life you'd have."
>> Ron Charles: That's great.
>> George Saunders:
So beautiful.
>> Ron Charles: Tracy wants
to know how your priorities
in writing, reading, and
teaching have changed
over the years, if
they've changed.
>> Alice McDermott: Well, mine
have changed because I retired
from teaching, so I've lost
one of those obligations.
>> George Saunders:
Mine have, I don't know
if my priorities have changed,
but I was saying to Alice
and Ron before that
I've noticed,
I just started teaching this
semester, and how linked
up those things are now for me.
Like I have a, almost like
a reliance on teaching
to then push me into writing.
Like I'll get done with
my teaching days and feel
so liberated to go back
to being an artist,
not have to explain anything
or rationalize anything.
And then when I come back to
teaching, there's a little burst
of being pleased that I
could talk about it again,
so it's been, I think
it's been kind
of symbiotic all these years.
>> Ron Charles: That's nice.
Patricia has a tough question.
Do you have regrets
about choices you've made
in past novels or stories that
you're willing to talk about?
[ Laughter ]
>> George Saunders: I regret
that they didn't sell more, Ron.
[ Laughter ]
>> Alice McDermott: Never
look back, never regret.
Go forward, go forward.
>> George Saunders: I think it's
kind of important to say, "Well,
whatever I did, I
did it for a reason.
You know, I was sort of a
misshapen artist back then.
I did this, but then
that helped me become,
you know, who I am now."
So I don't spend too much
time with that really.
>> Ron Charles: Let's see.
Someone wants to
know, Marion wants
to know what advice you
would give a new author
who has just finished
a manuscript
and who is looking
for a publisher?
And you must get this question
a lot from your own students.
>> George Saunders:
Send it to Ron.
[ Laughter ]
>> Alice McDermott: Well, the
process is you find an agent.
You can often do that by getting
a list of agents from someplace
like Poets and Writers,
and you find an agent
who responds to your work.
And then you hope the agent
finds an editor who responds
to your work, but the
most important thing is
that you start writing the
next novel while all this is
going on.
Don't stop.
Keep writing.
>> Ron Charles: Interesting.
Yeah, that sounds
like good advice.
George, do you have
anything to add to that,
or is that pretty much
the standard advice?
>> George Saunders: Well,
just I did it, you know,
the agent actually is sort
of the gatekeeper these days.
That actually is how it works.
Maybe the hardest thing to
get and if you get a good one
as I was lucky enough to do,
it changes the whole
course of your career.
But that seems to be where
the bottleneck is, you know,
and then the question of
how do you get an agent,
that's another one.
So it's tricky, but I also
tell my students that I think
of maybe all of the major
artforms, publishing is sort
of the most [inaudible]
and the most,
I would say it's
relatively virtue rewarding.
So I try to encourage my
students not to worry too much
about the findings
contacts phase and all that.
I kind of encourage
them to just trust
that if they make a beautiful
book, put all their energy
into that, that the
system is fairly just.
And that has the effect of
maybe just calming things down
and letting them put their
energy where it belongs which is
in that difficult, difficult
thing of finding, you know,
what you're supposed to
sound like and learning how
to revise and all that.
>> Ron Charles: Nice.
Yeah, that is good
calming advice.
Susan wants to know, she
knows writers who say,
when they're judging a book of,
a work of fiction, they'll say,
"Well, it's not 'The Transit
of Venus.'" Is there a book
for each of you that
you have that is sort
of the platonic ideal
of the great novel
that you judge every
other novel against?
>> Alice McDermott: "Transit of
Venus" is a pretty good choice.
>> Ron Charles: It is good.
It is very good.
>> Alice McDermott:
It's a wonderful novel.
[ Laughter ]
>> Ron Charles: George, do
you have a book like that?
>> George Saunders: Well, for
personally, it's "Dead Souls."
There's something about that
book I haven't been able
to figure out, and I
don't find it that moving.
I don't find it that funny,
but somehow, whenever I think,
you know, what book has,
what book feels the most
like the life that I've lived,
"Deal Souls" somehow comes up.
So that's one that
I think about,
although I also just
finished "Don Quixote"
for the first time, and
that's one, you know,
you could say that
of every book.
You know, it's no "Don
Quixote" except that book.
>> Alice McDermott: Yeah.
We don't want one book.
You know, readers don't
want just one book.
We don't want to say this is it.
I'm done. I got it.
It's the best.
You know, you want all kinds.
You want some not so good books.
You want some good
books, some great books,
different kinds of great books.
That's the pleasure of it.
That's why we need literary
critics so that they can tell us
about the breadth of the
literature out there for us.
See, we need you.
>> George Saunders: I was
thinking about that combination
of "The Grapes of
Wrath," which I love,
and then the book before that,
which now I'm going to blank
on the name, [inaudible].
What's it called?
It's very similar.
It's a book about some
budding socialists,
and it's just not as good.
But you can see how
the less good kind
of on the nose book led to
the beautiful masterpiece.
And you think, "Well, you
can't just pluck 'The Grapes
of Wrath' out of nowhere.
You have to make some,
you know, some mistakes."
>> Ron Charles: Right, right.
>> George Saunders: Yeah.
>> Ron Charles: It is such
a pleasure to talk to you.
I'm sorry we're out of time.
Thank you, Alice and George.
It always a treat to see you.
I hope we see you in
person one of these times.
And to all of those in the
audience, thanks for watching
and submitting your questions.
I want to mention that
both these authors have
great websites.
Just Google their names, and
you can continue following the
National Book Festival
through Sunday night
at loc.gov/bookfest.
Thanks so much.
Good night.
>> Alice McDermott: Good night.
[ Music ]