The Media Interview

A far worse sin than not having read a guest’s book, is to try and dip into it quickly and pretend you’ve read it, as this anecdote from Gail Williams illustrates, during an email forum featuring radio host Angie Coiro on The Well, July 2006:

I [once] asked a question of an author… based on randomly opening a book I had not read (a work of fiction, the hardest to talk about without having read!). I read four pages, found an interesting anecdote and asked about it. According to the author it was unrelated to anything important or interesting in the storyline. So I’ve tended to say “haven’t read it yet” since then.

and here’s a part of Angie’s response which I found particularly helpful:

Absolutely, the best policy is to actually READ the book. That’s why we try to schedule authors with enough lead time.

Barring that, I try to read at least the introduction, the first chapter, and the last chapter. Then I skim what I can in between.

I tell the guest ahead of time if I haven’t had a chance to read the whole book, and I’ll tell them what I have been able to read. They appreciate the honesty, and the experienced ones know how hard it is to get all the reading done.

Love this story about Ernest Hemingway being interviewed by George Plimpton, as told by Philip Gourevitch, the current editor of the Paris Review, who was interviewed on Powells.com by Dave Weich.

Gourevitch: A few days ago I was in L.A., and I was talking about the book [The Paris Review Interviews, Vol I] with Stephen Gaghan, the guy who wrote Traffic and wrote and directed Syriana. A long time ago, Stephen was a Paris Review intern.

He remembered being with George Plimpton once, and he asked about the Hemingway interview. George had this kind of patrician accent. He told Stephen, “I remember one morning when we were down in Cuba, we were going out tarpon fishing. We went down to the pier in the morning, and he was putting all the gear in the boat to go out for the day. I was coming down the pier, and I said, ‘Papa! I’ve been wanting to ask you about the white birds.’”

Hemingway turned around and said, “What’s that?” So Plimpton explained, “The white birds. You know? In your stories, at a significant moment, the white birds appear.”

Hemingway took two steps toward him and clocked him. He knocked him out cold.

Dave: Wow. Great story.

Gourevitch: I like it because it reminds you what a dangerous business literary interviewing is.