interview by vanessa willoughby

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Can love exist without intimacy? Why or why not?
Yes. We can love great artists or great souls whom we will never meet, and who may have lived long before we were born.

When was the last time you truly lost yourself in a work of fiction?
Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.

Name a piece of music/musician that can instantly transport you back to a place in time and what is the memory?
Kate Bush’s “Them Heavy People.” I was fifteen years old, watching Saturday Night Live, and I thought: “Who is this woman and how can I become her?”

When can an individual's metamorphosis turn into tragedy?
When one succeeds at passing as something one is not.

What is your definition of insanity?
Not knowing right from wrong.

What do you consider a universal rite of passage?
The loss of childhood.

A piece of artwork that captures the emotion of fear?
Francis Bacon’s “screaming pope” series.

You dream of falling out of an airplane. What do you think it means?
Fear of loss of control.

Your literary guilty pleasures?
Anything I am not supposed to be reading for an assignment, a blurb, a friend, a novel in progress, or my book group. And Vanity Fair (the magazine).

What is your most treasured piece of clothing in your closet?
A black sleeveless cocktail dress I bought at a thrift store in 1989. I actually just donated it to charity, after admitting to myself it was slightly too costumey to ever wear again.

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