February 26–March 5, 1998

20 questions

T. Coraghessan Boyle

Interview by Justin D. Coffin

T. Coraghessan Boyle is such a deft conversationalist he probably could have given me an hour's worth of material without me even being there. Like much of his writing, his discourse tends to be playful, erudite and dark. Since the late '70s, he's published seven novels and more than 60 short stories. His first novel, Water Music, was a mock Victorian novel about a trip up the Niger River. He won the Pen/Faulkner award in 1988 for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in his native Peekskill, NY (called Peterskill in the book). Boyle has a television series in the works for next year—13 one-hour episodes of his stories. (He's crossing his fingers.)

The 49-year-old writer is surprisingly tall with tight, wiry red hair. Currently, he's on tour promoting his new novel, Riven Rock (Viking), a work of historical fiction (more history than fiction) about the marriage of Katherine Dexter (one of the first female graduates of M.I.T.) and Stanley McCormick (a schizophrenic who was heir to the McCormick fortune). It is set primarily in Montecito, CA, where Boyle resides.

I met him at New York City's Royalton hotel—a place Robin Leach would describe in two words: "Opulence and splendor!" Boyle wore the dogged look of the pomo promo veteran and introduced himself as Tom. During our talk he nibbled away at a lunch of tomato soup and warm Roquefort salad.

You're perceived as a literary hooligan. Do you think that persona plays out in your work?

I tend to make fun of everything that I really hate or really love. I don't have much good to say about critics, who are essentially parasitic. When I seize power in this country—and it's going to be soon—they'll be the first to go. Let them criticize the food in the gulag.

But you have also come out and said that the critics have been right.

Sometimes they are right. The critics have supported me from the beginning, but I think—and this is self-serving of course—that they're right. I think I've done great work and I think I've done it honestly. One genius critic said that World's End is a kind of fictional autobiography. And I loved that, because that's what it is. I don't know my genealogy much: I would just rather invent it.

I wondered, what is the history of my own region? And I wanted to explore the idea of biological determinism. Here I am talking to you, making a great living, traveling all over the world because of one thing: the Irish gift of bullshit. Where does that come from, and what comes with it? And now, 11 years later, as they're mapping out the genes, they're beginning to feel that [laughing] we're not really responsible for anything—which [may mean] the end of democracy, the end of laws.

Did you have a team of researchers to help you with your historical work?

Oh, no, no. I'm not James Michener.

God bless you for that.

Thanks. Of course, he is dead now, and we can't speak ill of the dead.

In Riven Rock, you look at turn-of-the-century life and, more specifically, psychiatry and analysis, sexual depravity, Prohibition and women's suffrage. Do you think these things ended up shaping the 20th century?

I think to a large degree, and that's what attracted me to this story. I'm not interested in the traditional historical novel—what Ben Franklin ate and how it smelled. I'm interested in taking some bizarre thing from the past and playing it to reflect on now.

Like Thomas Pynchon did in Mason & Dixon with all the anachronisms, like Ben Franklin wearing sunglasses.

Exactly. Or like I did in Water Music, which is pure metafiction.

Riven Rock appears much more faithful to the time, though. More so than anything else you've written.

I think because I'm so blown away by the original story of Stanley and Katherine. Everything you read is true, right up to the crowning irony of the most dysfunctional marriage in history funding the birth control pill.

Caleb Carr (author of the Alienist) has basically condemned everyone writing historical fiction except himself, saying they play too fast and loose with it. He says that he only has his characters say the things they would actually say.

I don't know Caleb Carr. I never read him. But when writers start telling other writers what to do, we're in trouble. However, that being said, that approach to the historical novel doesn't really work. How do you know what they're going to say? That's why a lot of historical movies are so ridiculous. You've got Tony Curtis dressed up in a Roman toga, saying [in a Brooklyn accent] "My fadduh awaits dee."

Are there any stories or novels that you wish you had written?

Oh, definitely. Are you kidding me? I would die to have written The Remains of the Day [by Kazuo Ishiguro] or White Noise [by Don DeLillo]. And White Noise is right up my alley.

Have you read Underworld [DeLillo's new 850-plus-page novel which is also a work of historical fiction]?

Not yet. I would have brought it with me, except it's too heavy. You travel all over the world with two bags. Mainly I carry underwear. I will read him in the spring. I loved Mao II as well, and The Names. He's written some really fine books.

Do you watch television?

I haven't watched a regular TV prime time show since 1972. Why? I'm a crank. TV is my enemy and that's why I want to take it and use it against itself. And if we do the show and it succeeds, I can do less touring.

You'd have more of a media presence.

Yes. But here I am out on this tour because I'm supposed to be selling this new book so the publisher will be happy. I don't care about that. I'd rather sign an old copy of Water Music that has sperm on it, and ketchup stains, it's dog-eared and yellow, because I know somebody read it. I mean, it's very rewarding in a lot of ways to meet people who came out to see you because they like your work. Great. But tiring.

[The check arrives—$40 for a soup, salad and cup of coffee—and Boyle attempts to sign for it.]

What room am I in? [Pause] Sorry. What floor…? I've been on these tours, in hotels, and I have gone to the room I had the night before in a different city and inserted the key in the door of the wrong room.