I'm aware more than I was before I had books published that any review is a bit arbitrary - it's not really, say, 'The New York Times' that's authoritatively weighing in on the quality of a book, though it seems this way to the public.
— Curtis Sittenfeld
I don't think I anticipated supporting myself as a writer... I expected I would have to be a teacher or a journalist, that I wouldn't just write full time. It's such a part of my life, and in some ways, it's a very unromantic part of my life. It's almost, to me, like breathing. I don't think about whether I like it or not.
Of course I know my characters are unlikable sometimes or have prejudices. It's not as if I'm thinking they're so endearing all the time. I guess it's much more interesting to me to write someone who is a combination of good and bad qualities because that's what people are like in real life.
For 'Gender Studies,' I wrote that story in May and June of 2016. People have said to me, 'Oh, it's a political allegory,' and I think, 'Sure.' The political stuff is definitely there. But that's why I like fiction; there can be lots of different things going on, and it's all intertwined, and you can't separate out what's in what category.
I don't think everyone is equally haunted by high school, but I also don't think it's unusual to be.
A lot of times, in a store, clothes appear strange to me, their cuts or flourishes arbitrary. Why is this look stylish now? How long will it be stylish for? It's slightly embarrassing to admit this - because, as a novelist, I'm supposed to be observant - but I'm flummoxed by the way other women dress.
I grew up in Cincinnati, the birthplace of the creamiest and most delicious ice cream with the hugest chocolate chips. Graeter's used to be available only regionally, but an extravagant thing you could do was overnight-ship six pints to another state, in dry ice.
There's an ongoing 'water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink' situation at my house in terms of both pens and paper.
I see 'Eligible' as a homage, and I see 'Pride and Prejudice' as a perfect book. You can dispute whether this project is a good idea, but you can't dispute my fondness for the novel.
In some ways I think it would be very dignified if I went away for twenty years and then wrote my fourth book.
My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.
I'm able to separate fiction and reality. I guess it remains to be seen if other people are.
Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.
Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.
I'm so trying to give up meat.
I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors.
The nightmare reviewer is the reviewer who has some sort of agenda that precludes him or her responding sincerely to the book. Often, that agenda is seeming clever and/or taking someone who has received more than her fair share of attention down a notch.
I always wrote from a very young age, literally from the time I learned how to read and write.
I should probably be careful admitting this, but sometimes, when my characters are having a disagreement, it's a disagreement I'm having with myself. I can see both sides of the argument.
For most of my life - well, maybe half of my life, but basically until I was in my mid-20s - I wrote stories. From the time I was 5 or 6 until I was 25. And I read a lot of stories during that time.
I think there are people who think 'high school was the peak of my life,' and there are people who think it was dreadful, and then, I think most people are somewhere in between. I do think that it's normal to experience strong emotions during that time, and I think those emotions stay with you.
In 2013, before the publication of my fourth novel, I met with a stylist at Nordstrom. Since then, I've rarely shopped for 'event clothes' on my own. I usually do it with my sisters or a friend; if I'm alone, I take pictures of myself in the dressing room and text them to my sisters.
I enjoy reading tips about how to be more organized, and I rarely implement them.
Everything 'Atonement' does, it does incredibly well, including depicting characters of varying ages and temperaments and showing the intensity of early romantic love and connection and the very different intensity of haunting regret.
I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.
When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.
High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified.
Well, I think that if you sincerely try to imagine what life is like for another person - not in a mocking way, not in a satirical way, but in a sincere, compassionate way - I don't think that's exploitive.
I feel like if you read something, and it makes you so curious about a topic that you then go read something else, that's exciting.
I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.
Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try.
I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating.
No book I publish will be perfect, but I need to feel I've taken it as far as I can.
Sometimes, there can be a slightly condescending assumption that anything unlikable about a female character is a mistake, as if they're a contestant in a beauty pageant and have to seem charming and upbeat all the time.
I never write something and consciously embed political commentary or any other kind of commentary. I just try to get the characters into a room or out of a room, or onto the plane, or through the grocery store. The political stuff, the class stuff, the gender stuff, is in the air, it's in their interactions, because it's there for all of us.
Something that's interesting is how my perspective on different events can change over time even though the events themselves haven't changed. As I get older, I interpret something differently, or I can even interpret a person differently.
There are always interesting, innovative, dynamic stories being written and being published. They're not always being prominently published, but they're being published.
Weirdly, even as I became more confident as a writer and as a person, I completely lost faith in my own ability to shop for clothes.
In general, I believe it's fine to have impassioned conversations about Gwyneth Paltrow, but those of us who do so should admit it's a recreational activity and not a moral referendum.
In general, when any of us get outraged by relatively minor pop-cultural phenomena, I suspect it's a way of relaxing and not focussing on more daunting and intractable problems, whether personal or social.
The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.
There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.
I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself.
I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.
You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.
I just write the books that I think I would want to read.
It's never that hard for me to imagine what it must feel like to be someone else, whether it's an American teenage girl or a Japanese octogenarian man.
People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination.
