Junot Daz Hates Writing Short Stories

By SAM ANDERSON Published Se!te"ber #$% #&'# #' (o""ents

Every writer is cursed or blessed with a unique creative metabolism: the distinctive speed and efficiency with which he or she converts the raw fuel of life into the mystical, dancing blue smoke of art. Junot Da !s metabolism is notoriously slow. "is fuel #ust sits there, and sits there, and maybe every once in a while gives off a tiny ribbon of damp smoke, until you start to worry that it all got rained on and ruined $ and then, % or &' years later, it suddenly e(plodes into one of the most mesmeri ing fires anyone can remember. Da !s new story collection, )*his +s "ow ,ou -ose "er,. is his first book in five years and only his third book over all. +t is, like the other two, e(cellent. +n hopes of peeking into his artistic boiler room, + asked Da if he would mind bringing along to our interview a few artifacts of writerly inspiration $ a lucky pencil, maybe, or some druid crystals $ whatever he keeps handy to defeat all the little hobgoblins that try to drive him cra y every time he sits down to write. Da arrived walking stiffly $ he had ma#or back surgery #ust a few weeks before $ and carrying a fat folder of material pinned under one arm. *his turned out to contain a wide variety of documents. *here was a small black/and/white photo of his father in a fascist uniform, the discovery of which, Da said, inspired )*he 0rief 1ondrous -ife of 2scar 1ao.. *here was a bleak photo of the 3ew Jersey steel mill at which Da worked during college, a #ob about which he has tried, but failed, many times to write. *here was a photo of his parents posing proudly ne(t to a cow. *here were newspaper clippings about the )dirty war. in 4rgentina, a sub#ect that has haunted Da since childhood. *here were folded/up pieces of scrap paper from his back pocket that he had used to capture ideas as he walked down the street. *here were notebooks from the writing of )2scar 1ao,. filled with very tall handwriting leaning hard to the right. 4s Da pulled out one document after another, + got the sense that, if only he could have carried a big/enough folder $ maybe one the si e of a couple of continents $ he would have packed in #ust about everything he has ever seen or heard or 5especially6 read: libraries of fan fiction, rusty knives, third/world crowds, petroglyphs, secret police. "is work is defined by this kind of radical inclusiveness $ the language of drug dealers and *olkien dorks7 the problems of destitute Dominican women and their more privileged 4merican sons. *his receptivity to all the possible sources of inspiration is what makes Da !s work both so distinctively rich and, it seems to me, so difficult for him to write. +t!s like trying to distill the ocean down to a glass of water. )*his +s "ow ,ou -ose "er. is a catalog of wrecked love affairs, multilingual violence, unsatisfying labor and stranded children. +t takes place in a floating world between the Dominican 8epublic and the Eastern 9eaboard, between 9panish and English, between the novel and the short story. 4fter much confusion and struggle, the book ends with a moment of inspiration: the narrator, after years of blockage, begins to write a book that he thinks of as 5to quote the final story!s title6 )*he :heater!s ;uide to -ove.. +t!s a book that promises to be almost e(actly like )*his +s "ow ,ou -ose "er.. 4nd so Da !s process becomes the product itself. 4 few weeks before the book!s publication, Da and + stood at a <idtown bar for a couple of hours $ his back made it hard for him to sit $ and talked about writing well, writing badly and the mysterious 5but always, he insisted, clear6 difference between the two. 1hat follows is a condensed version of our conversation, edited lightly for clarity and with all of Da !s frequent swearwords removed. What )as your !lan *or this ne) +olle+tion, + wanted to capture this sort of cheater!s progress,

where this guy eventually discovers for the first time the beginning of an ethical imagination. 1hich of course involves the ability to imagine women as human. So you had your +on+e!tual *ra"e)or-. Ho) did the )riting go, <iserable. <iserable. *he stories #ust wouldn!t come. Ho) "any stories did you generate in total, +!ll tell you what, + can name the stories for )*he :heater!s ;uide to -ove. before )*he :heater!s ;uide to -ove. came. *here!s a story called )=rimo. that was supposed to be at the end of the book $ that was a miserable botch. + spent si( months on that, and it never came together. *here was a story called )9anto Domingo :onfidential. that was trying to be the final story, that + spent a year on. + must have written a hundred pages. +t was another farrago of nonsense. + wrote a summer story where the kid gets sent to the Dominican 8epublic while his brother is dying of cancer7 he gets sent because his mom can!t take care of him. +t was a story + called ):onfessions of a *eenage 9anky/=anky,. which was even worse than all the other ones put together. 4nd that was another %'/page botch. /hat "ust be tough. *hat!s why + never want to do this again. +t!s like you spend &> years chefing in the kitchen, and all that!s left is an amuse/bouche. /here0s a +lassi+ bit o* +reati1e2)riting2+lass ad1i+e that tells us )e need to learn to turn o** our internal editors. 301e ne1er understood ho) to unbraid the +riti+al and the +reati1e. Ho) do you "anage that, ,ou!ve raised one of the thorniest dialectics of working, which is that you need your critical self: without it you can!t write, but in fact the critical self is what!s got both feet on the brakes of your process. <y thing is, +!m #ust way too harsh. +t!s an enormous impediment, and that!s #ust the truth of it. +t doesn!t make me any better, make me any worse, it certainly isn!t more valorous. + have a character defect, man. So turn on your harsh !aternalisti+% "ilitaristi+ +riti+ 4 +t!s my dad. O.5.% in1ite your dad in 3 )ant to hear his re1ie) o* Junot Daz the bad )riter. What is )rong )ith that stu**, What are the "ista-es you "a-e, ?irst of all, nonsense characteri ation. *he dullest, wet/noodle characteristics and behaviors and thoughts and interests are ascribed to the characters. *hese @'/year/old, left/in/the/sun newspaper/brittle conflicts $ where the conflicts are so ridiculously subatomic that you have to summon all the key members of :E83 to detect where the conflict in this piece is. +t #ust goes on, man. ,ou know, + force it, and by forcing it, + lose everything that!s interesting about my work. 1hat!s interesting about my work, for me $ not for anyone else7 ;od knows, + can!t speak for that $ what!s interesting in my work is the way that when + am playing full out, when + am #ust feeling rela(ed and +!m playing, and all my faculties are firing, but only #ust to play. 3ot to get a date, not because + want someone to hug me, not because + want anyone to read it. Just to play. So you0re a slo) )riter. Are you a *ast reader, <y one superpower. + read a book a week, man. 4nd + don!t have a great memory, but + have a good memory about what + read. Ho) do you balan+e the reading and the )riting, +!m old enough and e(perienced enough to know when +!m reading to avoid. 4nd then you gotta get back to work. 4nd + also know $ you get old enough, you know when you!re forcing the writing, so you need to go hit the books. Ho) strategi+ are you in !i+-ing )hat you0re going to read at any gi1en "o"ent, 9ome of it is strategic: 2.A., +!m writing about a family, so +!ll go read this because + know there!s some family stuff. 0ut there!s always gotta be room for stuff to flow in. +t!s like )*he +ce 9torm,. by 8ick <oody. + was writing )2scar 1ao,. a book about Dominicans and cra iness, + was reading these history books and ethnic/studies books $ but )*he +ce 9torm. kind of fell on my lap and gave me the idea for the deep structure of the book, which was to pattern the characters on the ?antastic ?our. +t fell on my lap. + wasn!t looking for )*he +ce 9torm,. dude. Are there short2story +olle+tions that you +onsider tou+hstones, 3o question. *here!s the given, the monumental )Jesus! 9on.. +f you could go back in time to the way people dropped the ball on

certain books, )Jesus! 9on. was a book that should have been like =ulit er/everything. *here!s a book called )?amily +nstallments,. by Edward 8ivera. +t!s a memoir in &B stories. <ichael <artone wrote a series of short/story collections, and no one reads them anymore. )?ort 1ayne +s 9eventh on "itler!s -ist. is one of the great all/time 4merican short/story collections. "ilarious. Were there any boo-s that )ere !arti+ularly i"!ortant in !utting the ne) +olle+tion together, 9ure. CDa picks up my copy of his book and looks at the table of contents.D *ake )*he 9un, the <oon, the 9tars.. +t was always the )go on vacation. story $ the disaster vacation. <att Alam is a great short/story writer, and he had a wonderful story about a couple going on vacation. +n my mind, )9am the :at,. by <att Alam, was always connected to this. + gotta tell you, the person who does working people the best, working -atinos, is Dagoberto ;ilb. "is collection, )*he <agic of 0lood,. had all these ama ing stories about recent immigrants, <e(icans, trying to keep it together with these cra y #obs. What is your boo-2storage situation, Are you o1errun )ith boo-s, + have three storage units, and that!s no lie. *hree storage units. 4ll books. So 6/he (heater0s 7uide to 8o1e9 )as the hardest story to )rite. *here!s no question, )*he :heater!s ;uide to -ove. was the beast. *his thing almost killed me. Did any o* the stories +o"e easily, )<iss -ora. was the absolute easiest. + tried to write the first page maybe a do en times in the last decade, and + would never get past that, so + never wrestled with it too much. 4nd then one day it #ust hit, beginning to end. /hat "ust ha1e been a good day. +t was the only good day + had in this whole book. *he thing is, you try your best, and what else you gotE ,ou try your best, really, that!s all you can do. 4nd for me, my best happens really so rarely. + was so always heartened by people like <ichael :habon who write so well and seem to write so fast. Edwidge Danticat writes really well and really fast. + was always heartened by them. + keep thinking one day it!ll happen. +t might. *his article has been revised to reflect the following correction: (orre+tion O+tober :% #&'# 4n earlier version of this article described incorrectly a picture of Junot Da !s parents that he said inspired his writing. *hey were shown standing ne(t to a cow, not a giant bull.