This book has taken off in a way that is unexpected and startling and wonderful, and so mostly i just sort of thank my lucky stars and i sleep a little better. Im in a better mood generally and try to enjoy it despite my best efforts by one why does that put you in a better mood . Guest i been writing for 20 20 something years doing fiction for 20 years and sometimes you write a book and people dig it and people understand it, that sometimes you write a book and no one particularly cures and it sort of disappears. I have the pride and thinking i did a good job with the book, and the bows of other people digging it as well try in your first book was the intuitionist about elevator repairs, people. How do you sell a book like that . Guest exactly. That book i wrote a two paragraph description and either when i send it to my agent, even you dig the concept of groups of elevator inspectors or you dont. You either sort of along for the ride in the description or not and definitely when i was writing it, my second attempt at a novel, my first one was terrible and went to a bunch of publishers and everyone hated it. I had an agent. The agent dealt with because i was going into it. For a year to say to my friends, im writing a a book about elevator inspectors. Its totally stupid and they would make fun of me. Eventually after a year and half and writing i finally got down to what sounded like an interesting book. My new agents, likely doubleday did as well, is there a connection between the intuitionist sun one and the the underground railroad, et cetera . Guest a couple topics i circle around. Cities, a new yorker. I love writing about new york. I get a lot of ideas and energy from the city. Pop culture, race, race in america, technology and some of the themes are in some books, not so much in others. My book about new york, its not race lies new york. Its just your. My poker book, no hassle, doesnt have much to say about technology but theres a sort of four or five areas i tend to circle around. Host how should people read your books, social commentary, auto biographical . Guest definitely sag harbor which is my fourth novel is about growing up in the 80s and does take off from my childhood. I would say the underground railroad is my least autobiographical book. Just because like im not in there in some sort of coded way which is what probably people like it. I think read them from the first page, from the beginning to the income thats a good, good wakeup start to finish. Thats a a good way to read it. Some books are funny, some are a little more tragic. I hope the experience is worth your time. Sometimes its social, chicken sometimes they are cometary and whatever kind of weird thing im going through that year. Host in sag harbor are you benji with a bad haircut . Guest benji is a 50yearold kid growing up in new york in the 80s. As i did. Unfortunately, my life was a very interesting as i have to exaggerate. The summer of 85 was not that cool or compelling so you have to take a little bit of lessons. When i started the book i wanted to base characters on my friends and, unfortunately, none of them whenever they appeared on the page they became less and less like my friend david or scott as the book took over. It started off as purely on apocryphal and i in their but the demands of the story always supersede any kind of autobiographical or metamora stick urge come trying to make a compelling story which means exaggerating what happened to me. Host Colson Whitehead, what is the process to get to elevator inspectors or zombies or a railroad, underground railroad that actually exists in physical form . Guest i like to mix it up and not do the same thing from book to book. If you know how to write a certain kind of book why do it again . Perhaps thats foolish, and so but i think writing a book thats maybe very plot heavy and following up with a book that is not as plot heavy is way too very it up and up to the same thing. A first person that has a firstperson narrative, a book thats funny, not so funny is way to keep it varied for me. The last couple of books im on a perverse streak. Went from sag harbor about the 80s to zone one, and apocalyptic zombie tale to noble hustle which is a poker book to this book, the underground railroad, a historical novel. Im keeping a very different and i think i get my ideas from articles, just weird musings i have on my couch. Spend a lot of time on my couch. Sometimes the ideas stay with you and when you get an open spot in your schedule, you can consider it, are you ready, you want to do are not want to do it . Sometimes they the following by come from a lot of different places and ideas. Host the scenes be a common thing in your books about a guy who didnt get the rules of life, has a certain unease around certain people. Guest thats autobiographical but i dont want to tip my hand too early. We are here for three hours. Want to save the good stuff for the last hour. I think theres something about an outsider. I think whether you are misanthropic like i can be sometimes or were all sort of outside into the oyster and outside makes a good observer, good protagonist, a good storyteller. You are in the action but also standing apart. So someone who observes and is part of the scene but also a bit removed i think its a good vehicle for telling a story and definitely in the apocalypse come in the world of elevator inspectors its nice to have a point of view character for the reader. Most of us are not elevator inspectors sadly. My outsider characters become a way in addition for the reader to enter the story. Host some one didnt come until 2011 2011 i think i readn article that you are written that as a young guy like an eighth or ninth grade. Guest no, no. I was a horror fan and Science Fiction. Loved the zombie genre from going back decades. No, i wrote two terrible stories in college and emily didnt start writing until my mid\20{l1}s{l0}\20{l1}s{l0} fiction get up session with zos does go back to my childhood. Parents who love horror movies. We would watch horror movies together and i remember saying night of the living dead at a very early age. Stayed with me. To refresh your memory, its a story about the eve of the zombie apocalypse. People try to hide. They dont know whats happening and main protagonists is a black man being pursued by white people who want to devour him eat him which of course is part of the story of america. Growing up as a horror and Science Fiction fan, five books in i thought as ready to have influences my influences and try my hand at a horror story can you say you want hormuz but a get the impression there was an obsession with horror movies. Guest i mean sure. I dont want to get all judging, obsession, but yes. Host a real interest. Guest a real interest. My brother and i came of age during the dcr boom and so we go to crazy eddies which was in Electronic Store in new york and five hormuz, slasher movies every friday go through them, returned in and start all over again the next week. It was sort of Science Fiction or and, that maybe want to write a lot of Marvel Comics, when i was growing up. My parents would by stephen king novels and they would come into my brothers room and i would read them. Fantasy, horror has always seemed to be a potent storytelling tool. With zone one people have different ideas about what zombies mean. For me i find my own interpretation and put my own stamp on the genre, was sort of fun and support for me. Host what do zombies mean to you . Guest different generations interpret horror genres towards your own needs. Like dracula, vampires need something in 19 century in england. They mean Something Different to the twilight generation. Zombies mean Something Different to teenagers now. To me they avoid spent an expression of social anxiety, fear of other people. Psalm becomes obvious or can you go to bed and you wake up in the world has changed or your loved ones, your neighbors, teachers, coworkers are zombies had to get you and they have stopped her their voice and monsters but they are put the mask that and now theyre out to get you. That speaks poorly of my psychology that i interpret zombies in that way, but you know, the sort of zombie myth always stayed with me and i finally found a way to tackle it. I have these various ideas in the back of my head ready to put on page. Host is social anxiety, trade with novelist . Guest i dont know. Im not sure. I think it helps, i think worrying about your work, are you doing a good job, maybe a good skill for being a novelist. It helps you not coast. Host worrying about what others may think of your work . Guest no, are you doing a good job . Anxiety versus worry. A healthy amount of worry helps you make sure that youre putting everything into this paragraph, into that page. Making sure its coming out right even if you have done it, it books, ninth book, it books under your belt. Host in the new yorker in 20 tell you were quoted as saying to be a good novelist for you its to fully inhabit ones delusions to give into every kooky aspect of ones freakish this. Its a handy survival strategy. Guest well, i mean, i think what i like about my different books is that they are sort of odd and allow me to express different ideas about the world, about myself, different theories. And i think writing is becoming a way of me to interpret the world for myself. Figure out how i feel about things, how i feel about societal systems, politics, people. And so that license is very important for me. Not being tied to expectations, following my own inclinations, and just because writing about elevator inspectors sounds like a bad idea, sort of a dumb pathetic idea, can you make it work and can you sell it to the reader at the same time you are selling it to yourself . So the delusion that just something to say, the delusion that your work is worthy of being read by others i think is useful for being an artist. Host where did the truth of the idea of the the intuitionist come from . We on an elevator . Did you see an inspector . Guest i figured , what was that book about by the way . Guest remember gary coleman, the tv star, little black boy, he was, a tv critic at the time writing about black imagery and pop culture. So i figured id write a novel about a gary coleman esque child star. He goes up and has misadventures. It seemed like a great idea to me. In the novel is on a centcom called im moving in. He was always getting adopted by which white people. So im moving in seemed like realism. Got an agent and sense of the book and everyone hated it. I think i became a writer then like i would get a real job, become a lawyer or Something Like that, i wish is going to write another book and maybe people like it, maybe they wont but ill learn how to write by the end of it. I figured people like plots. Maybe i will have plot driven book. What the heck . I wrote a detective novel and steady suspense and i thought i was washing 2020 as often do in those days, in my 20s. In the 1990s. There was an article on the hidden dangers of escalators. Apparently if you dont repair as clinton you detach from the sides and you can lose a toe, very terrible thing obviously. At the escalator inspector was interviewed and i thought thats the random job. Escalator inspector and growing up in new york you always see theres a law, not necessarily enforced anymore, of the elevator inspector sort of signed the certificate. Ive been here, everything is fine. They come once a year. Your work you at school and suddenly you see that the elevator inspector has been better so i thought with typical elevator inspector had to become an expected to solve a criminal case . Ha ha funny post modern detective story. I went to the life or to see of skills and elevator inspector would bring to a criminal case. Of course the answer was not because they are in development they are elevator inspector to it became like i made up of a different culture elevator inspectors. I figured they are conservatives and progressives and that became the empiricists who do the right way inspecting elevators versus the intuitionist who are progressive, sort of place out in the book in different ways. I made an elevator inspector school, elevator inspector philosophies. Really i was trying to teach myself how to write. I have i didnt have a book that have plot or any kind of linear momentum so trying to do that and then i took this weird whimsical idea of elevator inspector saw that the criminal case of following it through its execution. So thats how that happened. Host prior to starting this interview you look at your books are on the table and said sorry for the clunkers that you had to read. What do you consider to be a clunker . Guest i think theyre all pretty good but hopefully if you do something for a long time you get better at it. Certain books ill think about and i will wonder why didnt you semiadjectives . Isnt there a simpler way of saying that . Maybe that book could lose the page were to here and there. Hopefully i i become a better vitamin headed do things in a more efficient way. Hopefully you get better and better and better, then obviously you plateau and the start sucking but hopefully im still in the Getting Better phase and Getting Better at my job looking from each book and taking that to the next level. Host does i am moving and still exist . Guest the manuscript is there. For a while i thought maybe i will strip might it or something but its really terrible and energy would take, bring it up to my now very high standards. So i better spend time writing something else. Its in my drawers. My children have a gambling debt, they can sell it for some money 30 years from now, you know, make some quick cash, pawnbroker. Host so Lila Mae Watson is one acre female protagonist. Core is another. Whats the reason to write for a womans point of view . Guest i think women exist and i think they will tell different stories. You should take different points of view. Thats part of that. I had a string of male protagonist before this book so seemed sort of wise to mix it up. I think if you know to do something, why do it . Alamein watson i couldnt do my sort of hipster in new york voice. That was my first novel. I was forced that i chose a third person narrator. I couldnt rely upon my first person narrator. A female protagonist i had nothing before and by doing it i could hopefully become a better writer. With cora i had a few male narrators in a row mix it up. Theres a famous slave narrative by Harriet Jacobs called flight of the slater and she writes of how weslaco becomes a slave woman she goes into a much terrible for the slater you now praise your masters desires. You were supposed to pump out baby seek is more mean more slaves, more profit if youre a master so that predicament you know slaves is worthy of exploring. Sometimes unkind mix it up sometimes i want to learn something and keep the challenge is going. What was your favorite one to write . Guest i think, you know, i mean, you know, this book was hard to write because i was broke. This book was hard right because i was broke and also the press. There are different cellos and when you are finished you can look back and think oh, it was pretty terrible but you know, it was a special type in my life. I think with noble hustle is a folding slip but it was the most fun director its a humor book taking off from a a trip i tooo the world series of poker. I tried to cram as many jokes as i could in there. Theres a journalistic framework so theres linear movement. I really was trying to cram as many weird jokes and bits of myself into it, and it was really fun. It started from a journalistic assignment. Theres a magazine called grant lan which pop culture and sports for couple of years and had great writing. They called it up to see if i wanted to write about the world series of poker and i was like no, i dont to to go vegas. Its really hot. They said what if we, instead of venue for the article we page or in transit and just go to the world series was i was like okay, ill do that. But i did know how to play tournament poker site just started cramming. I would drop my daughter at school, and the other parents would say what you up to . Unlike im going to Atlantic City to train for a poker tournament and i would get on a bus to Atlantic City and gamble. Come back at night. When i got to the world series and i stayed at home mostly for the first time i had to get out of my comfort zone, basically my foot area around my couch. It out of my comfort zone come learn how to play poker i wouldnt embarrass myself, my family new york at the world series of poker. And then one is writing it, writing a play and writing an article it was serialized and so we write a novel, like a joke, make a soft laugh. It was two years before someone else reads it and you feel kind of stupid laughing at your own jokes for a while. But with writing in a serial way like dickens did back in the day, you get the media response that people like it and felt really good and gave the energy to keep going. It was a very certain special fighting experience in terms of the material, in terms of how it came to be. I look upon that six months perry foley. Host i will paraphrase the first line of the book which is, i got to wear sunglasses inside. It was good for me because im halfday anyway. Guest sure, yes. Her years i have been told i had a good poker face i realized that was because i was half dead inside, which people mistake for that mass of a good poker player. My natural lack of aspect was for once an asset in a social situation. Do you want me to unpack being half dead . Host ill help you here in our therapy sessions unpack this a little bit. You do write about having a mask on. Youd you write about the fact that you are semidepressed, hermetic when youre writing and you are a different person when youre done with a book. Its that important, is that pain or depression important to your writing . Guest i think partial it is an partially it is good to have a healthy joking relationship with most things you do in life, whether its art or anything else. And so not take myself too seriously i think its important. I think in terms of sharing how you feel about my work with other people, demystifying it is important. Most writers i i know we are jt sort of, you know, crawling along the pavement trying to write pages in hand than in sonoma gets in our case and we can keep doing what we like to do. A lot of times writing is unpleasant. It also has an incredibly great when you figure out a new sentence or a a character or figure out the problem you have been working on. But for me not taking it too seriously and i think the character of a depressive shutin i think is fun to play and its partially true and also its also sort of default setting in my Public Relations so what the heck, go for it. Host what was the easiest book to write . Guest they are all free har