I had been trying to write the perfect absence note. I can’t believe this.” She took the pad and pencil and dashed something off. There was a pile of crumpled pages on the floor, and my wife was saying, “I can’t believe this. This went on until I heard a horn blowing outside. I tore that sheet off, and started again. and then I thought, No, that’s not right, obviously it’s my daughter Caroline. So I wrote down the date and I started, Dear Mrs. I was having my breakfast one morning when she appeared with her lunch box, her rain slicker, and everything, and she said, “I need an absence note for the teacher and the bus is coming in a few minutes.” She gave me a pad and a pencil even as a child she was very thoughtful. It was my daughter, Caroline, who was then in the second or third grade. What I was thinking of was a note I had to write to the teacher when one of my children missed a day of school. You once told me that the most difficult thing for a writer to write was a simple household note to someone coming to collect the laundry, or instructions to a cook. The fact that a large audience was listening during the interview seemed not to discomfit him in the slightest. His expression is perhaps quizzical (described by The New York Times as “elfin”), yet it is instantly apparent that a great deal of thought has been put into what he is about to say. Yet, though his voice is soft, it is distinctive and demands attention. They are included with their answers at the end of this interview.Īt first meeting, Doctorow gives the impression of being somewhat retiring in manner. After the flurry caused by this exchange had died down, the questions from the audience were more germane. A befuddled lady in the fifth row asked, “What made you write about the firestorm in Dresden?” With the patience of one who has taught at a number of institutions (Sarah Lawrence, Princeton, Yale Drama School, and New York University, among others), Doctorow politely informed his questioner that she probably had Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five in mind, and that the Dresden firestorm had been done “so beautifully” there was little reason for anyone else to try. Actually, the first question from the floor suggested that the public forum might not be the best place for such an interview. The audience was invited to ask questions at the end of the formal interview. After a short introduction, Doctorow and his interviewer came out and sat facing each other in two chairs at center stage. An audience of about five hundred was on hand. Doctorow is one of the first in this series conducted in public-which it was, under the auspices of The Poetry Center, in the main auditorium of New York City’s famed cultural spa, the 92nd Street YMHA. This interview on the craft of writing with E. Interviewed by George Plimpton Issue 101, Winter 1986
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