Endangered Species by Lawrence Grobel

"Norman Mailer once told Lawrence Grobel that writers may be an endangered species. And Saul Bellow told him, "The country has changed so, that what I do no longer signifies anything, as it did when I was young." But to judge from this collection, writers and writing aren't done for quite yet. Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, sometimes caustic, always passionate, the twelve writers in Endangered Species memorably state their case for what they do and how they do it. And they even offer an opinion or two about other writers and about the entire publishing food chain: from agents to publishers to booksellers to critics to readers. Not surprisingly, it makes for some great reading." (taken from the back cover)

The subtitle is "Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives"

A book for those who are interested in some of the 20th Century's most notable authors.

Ray Bradbury Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years, Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer."

Lawrence: How did you deal with early rejection?

Ray Bradbury: "You have to feel the editors are idiots or misconceived. We all do that. It's wrong, but it's a way of surviving. I try to teach young writers to do the same thing. You sit down at the typewriter again and do more work and try to get a body of work done so you can look at it and become your own teacher. If you do fifty-two short stories it's better than doing three, because you can't judge anything from three stories. It's hard to write fifty-two stories in a row and have them all be bad. Almost impossible. The psychological benefits from my first sale, which I got no money for, had to last me for a year before I made my next sale. That year I sold two more stories and had a little extra residue of belief. But it wasn't until I was twenty-two I began to sell quite a few short stories, and most of those were at fifteen dollars apiece. When I was twenty-four I sold about forty short stories in one year to the various pulp magazines. I got thirty or forty dollars apiece, finally a halfway decent income. Must have made twelve hundred dollars that year. I thought I was rich."

Endangered Species, Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press(c)2001
page 4

Andrew Greeley Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years, Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer." In 1993 he sat down with Andrew Greeley:

Lawrence: "What's the most courageous thing you've done as a writer?"

Andrew Greeley: "The greatest risk was to turn from nonfiction to fiction. It took me a while because I wondered if I was able to do it. It was a risky business, not because I was going to put some eroticism in my books, I'm unself-conscious there, sexual attraction is part of the human condition, you can't write a story without it - I just felt telling stories was a risk."

Lawrence: "What would you say is a main theme that runs through you books?

Andrew Greeley: "Second chances. That we keep getting second chances."

Lawrence: "Would Chicago always be a subtheme"

Andrew Greeley: "Somebody once said, "Why don't you take your novels out of Chicago, it's not the center of the world." And I say, "Yeah, it is." Faulkner was comfortable in Mississippi; I'm not Faulkner, but I write about Chicago."

Endangered Species, Writer Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press (c) 2001
page 166, 167

Alex Haley Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years, Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer." In 1985 he sat down with Alex Haley:

Lawrence: "At the time of its publication Roots was hailed as one of the most important books of the century, as well as the most important civil rights event since the 1965 march of Selma. Do you hold it in such esteem?"

Alex Haley: "I never would have said that in the first place. I have a much more basic view of myself. I feel myself as a conduit. Roots got born on the front porch of a pretty big house in Henning, Tennessee, where I came from. It was my grandmother's porch. After my grandfather died, my grandma invited her sisters to spend the next summer with her. I was six that summer, and after supper we would gather on the front porch, thick with honeysuckle vines, and the women would all start rocking in their rocking chairs. Then they'd run their hands down into the pocket of their aprons and come up with a can of sweet carrot snuff. They'd load their lower lips and just start talking about their family. They'd talk about their parents, about their daddy's daddy, this ha rum-scar um individual always fighting chickens, people called him Chicken George. Then they would talk about his mother, Miss Kizzy. All of this went on night after night, and that's where I first began to hear the story and why I think of myself as a conduit."

Endangered Species, Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press (c) 2001
page 211

Joseph Heller Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years,Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer." He sat down with Joseph Heller early in his career:

Lawrence: "Do you have an audience in mind when you're writing?"

Joseph Heller: "Yes, somebody who has a taste like my own. It's true of Catch-22 and it's true of Something Happened. Each book is the kind of book I'd enjoy reading if somebody else had written it. The books are vastly different from each other. Catch-22 was read and enjoyed by people who were much younger than I was, with less education, less interest in literature than I have. The people who buy my books are interest in serious reading, even though the works themselves are humorous and funny. Not for a reader who's interested in plot or erotic literature. There's a lot of sex in both books, but the erotic element is played down."

Endangered Species, Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press (c) 2001
page 222

Elmore Leonard Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years, Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer." In 1998 he sat down with Elmore Leonard:

Lawrence: "There are an awful lot of crime and mystery writers in America. How do you account for your popularity?"

Elmore Leonard: "I think it's based on the fact that my books are entertaining. It must be that simple. My readers like the references to what's going on in the world, to television and movies, they feel a rapport with these people. It might be just the dialogue, that the story moves very, very quickly. They like it that you can get on an airplane in the east and finish the book before you're in L.A. Maybe that's it."

Endangered Species, Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press (c) 2001
page 244

Joyce Carol Oates Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years, Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer." In 1992 he sat down with Joyce Carol Oates:

Lawrence: "Since you seem to be a compulsive writer, what is it that most excites you about putting words on paper?"

Joyce Carol Oates: "The challenge of making an internal vision external. Getting the inner vision out. I love to write. I feel I have something to say. It's exhilarating once in a while, but most of my experiences are fraught with frustration because I always feel dissatisfied. A whole day can go by and I feel I haven't accomplished anything. My husband was asking me about this. He said, "You get a lot done in a day." I guess I do, but I don't feel that I have. I have a feeling always, which is subterranean of being profoundly dissatisfied with what I'm working at."

Lawrence: "How important are names for your characters?"

Joyce Carol Oates: "Absolutely important. I spend a long time naming names. If I can't get a name right, I can't write, I can't begin. I have a lot of people's names that begin with J, especially men. It's like my alter ego. I always go for the J if I can get away with it."

Endangered Species, Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press (c) 2001
pages 324,362

Neil Simon Interview (Lawrence Grobel)

Lawrence Grobel has been a freelance writer for thirty years, Playboy calls him "the interviewer's interviewer." In 1985 he sat down with Neil Simon:

Lawrence: "How autobiographical a writer are you?"

Neil Simon: "Very, when I'm writing autobiographical plays. In a sense, everything you write is autobiographical because it is going through your brain, so it comes out like litmus paper, it always catches some of who you are. But even when you write the autobiographical plays, they are not specifically autobiographical. When people see plays like Come Blow Your Horn or Brighton Beach and Biloxie Blues, they'll ask, "Did that really happen? Did he say that?" Well, sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. Sometimes I've given aspects of my life to somebody else, like my girl cousin, who had aspects of what I went through as a child. It's hard to discuss that writing process. It's like you throw it into a bowl, mix it up, and pour it out. But everything of you is in there."

Endangered Species, Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives
by Lawrence Grobel
Published by DA CAPO Press (c) 2001
pg. 395