Two Good Views
Wall Street Journal: Can you tell me about the book you’re working on, in terms of story or setting?
CM: I’m not very good at talking about this stuff. It’s mostly set in New Orleans around 1980. It has to do with a brother and sister. When the book opens she’s already committed suicide, and it’s about how he deals with it. She’s an interesting girl.
WSJ: Some critics focus on how rarely you go deep with female characters.
CM: This long book is largely about a young woman. There are interesting scenes that cut in throughout the book, all dealing with the past. She’s committed suicide about seven years before. I was planning on writing about a woman for 50 years. I will never be competent enough to do so, but at some point you have to try.
Mother Jones: You write about your boyfriend Hugh a lot. Do people ever want to meet him?
DS: If there’s any guy standing behind me people will say, “Is that Hugh?” And I’m like, “Do you think he has nothing better to do than to travel around with me and stand behind me while I sign books?” One time, though, there was a beefy Puerto Rican security guy, very stern and very tough, so I told everybody that was Hugh. I could see how irritating that was for him, because here’s everybody thinking that he’s gay and that he’s my boyfriend. But his job was to protect me, not to kill me. So there was nothing he could do about it.
