Our Interview with Carolyn See

Carolyn See is the author of five novels, including The Handyman and Golden Days. She is a book reviewer for The Washington Post and is on the board of PEN Center USA West. She has a Ph.D. in American literature from UCLA, where she is an adjunct professor of English. Her awards include the prestigious Robert Kirsch Body of Work Award (1993) and a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction. She lives in California.



Tell us about your newest release, There Will Never Be Another You.

I've always been interested on how the larger world influences the smaller world and vice versa. (There was a great flu epidemic for instance, in the teens of the last century, but my first mother-in-law lost her mother to that illness when she was an infant, and her sense of abandonment carried over to her son, who as my husband, couldn't bear to ever let anything go, and tried to have two or three girlfriends at a time to cut down on his terror of being left alone and being abandoned...It's no secret that 9/11 "changed everything. But how? In "There Will Never Be Another You," I thought of a decent guy, a forty year old on the west coast, a dermatologist because he wants to be a respectable doctor but can't stand the sight of blood. He's married to the wrong woman and has the obligatory girlfriend, and a couple of kids who leave a lot to be desired. He knows he could be living a better, more useful life but he's stuck, as so many of us are.

When 9/11 happens, he's co-opted by the government -- he's one of the few people in the USA who can recognize the symptoms of small pox, anthrax, any other of a number of diseases that are identified by a distinctive rash. He wants no part of it! His main concern (such a little one, but the kind of thing that actually takes up much of our time as adults) is to get his rather awful little son, who he loves more than life itself, into a decent private school. The great events and the little events clash. Phil, my sweet hero, finds a way to become an actual hero, something he (or any of his friends or relatives) never would have expected.

Tell us your thoughts on the journey to publication.

I think where so many beginning writers miss the boat is by waiting until their manuscript is finished before they even think about publishing. I'm going to suggest that writers would do well to read my "Making a Literary Life," in which I say that you should begin to think of publication AT THE VERY INSTANT you think of becoming a writer.

I suggest you write 1,000 words a day (when you're working) and write one charming note a day five days a week to a person in publishing who makes your hands sweat. (Or, to a desperate young writer who needs encouragement.) These notes are like threads in a spider's web that connect you to the world where you want to be -- the world of publishing.

I believe strongly in doing magazine work when you first start out, because the young editors in magazine grow up to be the old editors in book publishing. You send out work, articles, whatever, knowing perhaps that you'll be rejected, but thanking the editor for the rejection...your main objective is to build up a group of people in publishing that you have at least a passing acquaintance with. My main beef with MBA programs is that they just shine this part of the process on -- mostly they know as much about the publication process as my dog. So then they affect surprise when you can't get your novel published -- well, we never taught you THAT, they say. We just told you how to write. But think of publication as at least 50% of what it is you're trying to do. And think of it from the beginning.

You've been involved in various aspects of publishing industry, free-lancer, novelist, professor, and book reviewer. Which identity (author/professor/book reviewer, etc) do you mostly see yourself as?

Well, I'm going to sound presumptuous, but I think of myself as a "woman of letters." My whole life has been about books, and literature. I'm not a scholar, I'm a generalist, but until I start losing my brains, I know a lot. Again, with the exception of some romantic adventures, and my children, and some pretty extensive travel, books are my mainstay, my life. When people ask me, though, I just say I'm a novelist. (It's surprising how little this means to people. They'll usually answer, "Do you write fiction or non-fiction?")

What strikes me most about your writing is how honest and open you are. (It's so refreshing!) Is this difficult for you. Is it a struggle to reveal your truest thoughts, or does it come naturally?

First, honey, I guess I'd say, how do you know that I'm honest and open? I could be a serial killer and just not have mentioned it! Seriously, it's a lot easier to be honest than it is to lie or carve out an artificial persona, and what would be the point? The whole point of writing is to open your heart to others and see if anyone else in the world feels the same as you do -- you write to alleviate loneliness, mostly your own. There have been several times in my life -- not that many, actually, when I've gotten so excited reading a book that I've had to get up and walk around to calm myself down -- Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club," for instance, because in that first chapter she told the story of my first marriage to my part-Chinese husband and NO ONE HAD EVER DONE THAT BEFORE. And I knew I wasn't alone. Amy had a lot of qualms about opening her heart. But thousands of people responded to her.

Looking back on all you've accomplished and experienced, what advice do you offer those just starting out?


Start exactly where you are! If you're a mom, going crazy at home with a couple of little kids, start there. If you're in the midst of a torrid office affair, start there. If you have a dying parent, start there. If you love dogs, start there. Remember to write notes to writers you love, and just start in on that thousand words a day.

Don't worry unduly about plot, or whether or not your stuff is "great" you can always go back and revise, and revise again. But start right where you are and explore what that is. Maybe it turns out that you hate your brother. Or that you've always loved to dance, or that certain things strike you funny. YOU DON'T HAVE TO KNOW AHEAD OF TIME. Start writing, and the writing will tell you where you are.

Have you made mistakes that others can avoid?

Plenty! Usually, actually almost always, it has to do with losing my temper. Some editor will write me a set of insulting notes, and I'll get angry and let it show. A magazine editor years ago inserted about 1,000 words of his own blather into a piece of mine and I didn't work for him for a number of years after that. I caught a book editor saying she "loved" my book, when she hadn't even read it yet. I caught another publicity guy saying he'd been lobbying for a cover story for me on a particular magazine and when I found out the magazine hadn't heard one thing about it I got so mad I literally burst a blood vessel. Just this morning -- oh well! -- I found that my publishers had asked my permission to use a photograph done by a woman who's given me no end of grief over the years (she has the notion that I should pay her every time any newspaper uses her pictures of me), so I said no and guess what? She wrote me an aggrieved letter wondering why they had cancelled their order for her picture -- in other words, they had asked her, and THEN asked my permission...Things like that can wear on you. Feelings can be hurt, harsh words exchanged. I have a bad temper and I hate to be lied to. I have to remember that Oscar Wilde said that only one publisher had ever told him the truth: "He said he would cheat me and he did!" But the point is, every time I lose my temper I do myself a disfavor. And that has been my biggest mistake over the years.


What is something you wish you'd known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration?

I think that's answered by question above. Like many writers, I keep getting art mixed up with commerce. I forget time and time again that the people who publish you are in business. Art has nothing to do with it. It's like picking up some guy on a street corner, having very careless sex, and then expecting him to propose the next day and buy you a microwave oven. Writers and publishers have very different agendas. It's nothing personal. Publishers aren't monsters. They just want something else than what writers want.


What is the best advice you've heard on writing/publication?

It came from Larry Dietz, who was an editor of West Magazine at the time, and I was a lowly freelancer. He didn't like a piece I had sent them and he said, "Look, Carolyn! This is how you do it! And very rapidly, in a fairly impatient voice, he summarized how to write a 12 page magazine piece. You can read about how to do it in "Making A Literary Life." That piece of information kept food on the table for my children and me for many years.

What do you consider the worst advice you've heard?

Well, just last week, a nice couple suggested that after I sell my condo here in Pacific Palisades I move to Tokyo where there's a department store with a pet shop on the 8th floor. People will give you any kind of advice! They just love to do it! Some advice I particularly cherish was when some professor suggested I withdraw from graduate school in order to give some deserving man a place so he could support his wife and children, or another sweetie (he was known as the doorbell king of California) who suggested I give up writing because I would lose all my friends, and of course those ever-imaginative publishers who like to suggest that you don't need to ever go on a tour, that my voice was so distinctive that my books would sell by word of mouth-- ads or a party would be too "vulgar." Again, the thing to do is smile. The thing NOT to do is get mad.

Book coverage in major papers is reported to be shrinking and the National Book Critic Circle has actively been working to ensure that book reviews continue. What are your thoughts?

I think it's like railing against Daylight Saving Time. It will happen whether we rail or not. Newspapers may not be dead yet, but as the ancient Romans used to say about someone who was terminally ill "They're ready for the parsley." (This refers to the Roman custom of wreathing the dead in parsley.) In other words, it's not book reviews that are feeling the pinch, it's print media in general.

Looking at the bright side, most newspapers carry extra reviews on line, and there are zillions of blogs and volunteer reviewers spring up all over the place and there's always television and magazines and mailing lists -- which I consider the very best way to get the word out on a book. I think of Orson Scott Card or Terry Brooke who have thousands of people both on snail mail lists and email lists and the main point of any book review is to get the word out to the potential buyer, so that's getting taken care of, just in ways we might not be used to yet...

You've been on both sides of the coin for book reviews. You've had your book reviewed favorably and unfavorably, and you've given favorable and unfavorable reviews. What attitude should authors adopt towards book reviews?

As you say, I've been on both sides of the fence on this. I've written about a dozen books and written a review a week -- either for the LA Times or the Washington Post for about as long as I can remember, i.e., most of my adult life.

I hate to give a bad review but sometimes a book is really terrible, or so it would seem to the reviewer. As an author, and I know this sounds bogus, or like wishful thinking, DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THEM! It's nicer to have a bad review than no review at all; it's nicer to have a good review than a bad review, but if you have a rock solid mailing list and a good following -- people who know your work and look forward to the next book -- reviews don't matter all that much. Bad reviews tell more about the reviewer than the writer.

Now that I have some money, I send a dozen white roses to every reviewer with a hearty THANK YOU attached. To a really apoplectic reviewer I sent those roses with the message, "Cheer up, Buttercup!" As I've said earlier, a lot of things about the publishing business make me angry, but not reviews. It's like taking your chances on the playground; sometimes you get punched. I once gave a scathing review to T. Jefferson Parker and he took that review and ran with it, getting his friends to write letters of protest, scoring charming profile in the LA Times that made him look like the absolutely darling guy he was and is, and now (I think and hope) we're very good friends. It's like ping pong -- you don't fall over and sob every time you lose a point -- or gain one either.

How do you choose which books to review? (How much is based on the publisher's efforts? The author's networking? And what can a newcomer working on a small-scale do?)

At one newspaper, we (the regular reviewers) were allowed to pick what books we reviewed. In retrospect, I don't think that's a very good idea, because it leads to corruption -- there's a terrible temptation to punish your enemies and reward your friends.

At the Washington Post I won't touch anything I haven't been assigned. I think it's a safer way to work. Also, when you get those desperate requests to review someone's book, you can say that you don't review books that haven't been assigned. As to what happens in the cozy restaurants of downtown Manhattan, I'm sure that publishers put a literal or figurative squeeze on reviewers to pay attention to certain books. I know that sometimes the fix is in. But I don't know how -- or even why.

Care to make any predictions on upcoming trends?

At last, a short answer. NO.


Will you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

Just what you might imagine. I get up make coffee, go back to bed, do the cross word puzzle, head for the balcony if it's a pretty day and write a thousand words.

In the afternoon I work on the mail, which seems to me to be never ending. I sneak out to a movie with my friends. I go out to dinner. I plan trips. On trips, I bring along several bound galleys with four pages stuck in each of the. I write reviews and throw the galleys away, leaving room for gadgets and gifts coming home. It's very undramatic, the writer's life!

What are the top five books that you've read this past year, and what are your top five "highest recommended" novels of all time?


Artisitc Differences, by Charlie Hauch
Running with Scissors, by Augesten Burroughs.
Days of Awe, by Hugh Nessensen.

You know what? That's about all.

The top five books of my life would be different...

The Melendy series, by Elizabeth Enright. Wonderful kids' books!
The Jungle Book
.Anything (except the Shorty books,) by Elmore Leonard.
Anything by James Ellroy, Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. Just typing it makes me smile.
Forked Tongue, by Carl Hiaasen, which has the finest suicide note ever written.
And every book by E.M Forster except for Maurice or the criticism.

It must be amazing to watch your daughter's novel (Lisa See's Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) climb the charts, especially since you're the daughter of a writer. How has it been watching this come full circle? (I'm particularly curious as to whether you've been allowed to take part in your daughter career, i.e. reading sample chapters and offering suggestions, or has she wanted to find her own path, her own way?)

I don't think I'd want to be part of the process, nor would she want me to. There was a time when she and John Espey and I collaborated (as "Monica Highland") in the writing of a couple of popular novels. We had a wonderful time and made some decent money. But I think I only read Snow Flower in galley form for typos and repetitions. Lisa and I work hard together (writing invitations for signings that we both have, for instance). We groan about editors and publishers and long hours. I think the whole family -- her husband, my younger daughter, me, her two sons -- was involved in figuring out a crucial plot point in Peony in Love -- why Peony's ancestor stone didn't get its little red dot, which caused no end of trouble. But in general, we keep our writing separate -- although we're very close. We talk almost every day.


If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

What strengths do I wish for from other writers? The moral certitude of E.M. Forster. His novels are my bible. The exquisite plotting and shifts of point-of-view of Elmore Leonard. I love to listen to his stuff in the car, then start all over again to try and find out how he gets those extraordinary effects. (I'll never find out though. He's too wily for me.)

The beautiful vision of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. (Although I get exasperated with his laziness at other times.) But if you've written Lonesome Dove you can be as lazy as you want.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

That somebody -- maybe just one person a day -- will read "Golden Days" or "Making a Literary Life" or "There Will Never Be Another You" and jump up out of a chair and walk around and say, "I'm not alone any more." (I've written about autism too, and gotten a tremendous response.)

The mail I talked about earlier? That's an index of whether or not I'm getting read and whether or not I'm reaching people. I wrote a memoir call Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America about growing up in the midst of a drunken, rowdy, Irish working class family. During my tour, a cleaning girl in a hotel in Minnesota -- just a girl, she couldn't have been more than 16 -- mumbled very shyly to me, "You and I are part of the same family." I want people, if they happen to pick up "There Will Never Be Another You," to experience loss and -- let me just say it, redemption -- in a gentle way, like they've been held by their mother and been comforted. I don't care about "greatness," or being immortal. I just want for people to keep reading my stuff as long as there's a need for it.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

My favorite, working along in a first draft that you KNOW will change the world. This is a form of insanity, but I love it very much. Least favorite? Staring at your 20th revision, and you think your flesh is going to curl up and fall off your bones. But that's OK too. It's all terrific actually.

**Read more of our interview in this month's Novel Journey Newsletter