Nicole Krauss, TO BE A MAN

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[2:36]Nicole Krause is the author of the International Best Sellers, Forest Dark, Great House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Orange Prize and the History of Love, which won the Sarayon Prize for International Literature and Francis

[2:50]Plea de Mayo, Leva Etchlanger. Etchlanger, maybe, and was shortlisted for the Orange, Meditees, and Feminine prizes. Her first novel, Man walks into a room was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year.

[3:03]In 2007, she was selected as one of Grantess Best of Young American Novelists. And in 2010, she was chosen by the New Yorker for their 20 under 40 list.

[3:12]Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into 37 languages. She is the first writer and residence at the Zuckerman Mind, Bot, Brain, Behavior Institute at Columbia University.

[3:27]And to be a man is her first collection of short stories, which is mostly what we're talking about today.

[3:33]Welcome to Cola. Thanks so much for coming on Moms. Don't have time to read books. Thank you for having me.

[3:37]I'm so excited to discuss, to be a man, your collection of stories. And I just took this off of my shelf behind me where I knew exactly where it was on eye level.

[3:46]So I pass it like every day. The History of Love, just FYI, Gates, you're wondering. Anyway, for readers, you don't know anything yet about to be a man.

[3:54]Can you tell us what this collection of stories is essentially about and what inspired you to write all of them, I guess, or to make a whole new collection of stories?

[4:03]Well, it's always hard to say what any book is about, per se, even a novel, but it's especially hard when it's a collection of short stories.

[4:11]But if pressed, I would say that it's a collection of stories that's largely about relationships, about what it is to be a woman and what it is to be a man, about the tension between freedom and relationship.

[4:27]There's a lot of requirements and limitations of relationship and the difficulties of freedom.

[4:33]I think it's a lot about the paradoxes of people. You know, all of the, there are a lot of men in these stories, a lot of women looking at men and experiencing men.

[4:44]And the men, just like the women, are full of contradictions. And they're not, you know, contradictions that I want to solve as an author, but I want to hold and to look at.

[4:54]the taste. I mean, I'm glad I pressed. I'm glad I'm glad you're pressed answered. I was like a perfect beautiful articulate answer to that question. So par for the course with your writing.

[5:05]But yes.

[5:06]Well, let me talk about just a few of the stories of you, a first story, for instance, with Sir Linda with Soroya and at first, I didn't even realize if it was a girl or a boy and as the story unfolds, you kind of realize what's going on and that they're through girls sort of in this intermediate,

[5:20]supporting house ish type place and one girl gets ensnared in a perhaps not so great relationship with a presumably much older man and what happens to her along the way and we can only imagine as you sort of as the story unfolds.

[5:35]In this story, I felt like the girls were so with so few words, you created these entire characters and you enabled me to feel like fear and worry for a character that had like just appeared in my imagination.

[5:50]And I've always intrigued by how an author can do that because a minute ago, I didn't even I hadn't even met this character. Next thing you know, I'm like, Oh, no, don't go to the hotel.

[5:59]So what do you think it is? What do you think helps you create that sort of intimacy and ability to like get the reader right in to get to know a character like that.

[6:08]I think it begins with a writer's own relationship to the characters. I tend to choose characters that I feel like an enormous amount of compassion for and I don't think that's unusual, but I don't think it's always the case.

[6:23]I think there are writers who do very well choosing characters that they are they hold it in like ironic distance from themselves. And I think for me, I get very so close to my characters that I am I am them.

[6:36]I'm inside of them or I'm pulling out pieces of myself in order to make them or pulling out pieces of intimate experience.

[6:44]In this case, the narrator is 13 and those older girls to Ria and Maria are 18. And I had the structure or like the setting or maybe the circumstance of the story came from my own experience of being 13 in a boarding house in Geneva at boarding school.

[7:02]It just a time out, you know, at a certain moment in life, I found myself going back to my memory and thinking about that time and the story kind of came out of that.

[7:12]In this the girls, the other two girls, the narrator describing, I just think she feels and so I as a narrator felt such enormous like affinity for them or connection to them that they were these older girls who kind of cut this pathway into this more mature life that as a 13 year old, she knew was on the horizon, but she hadn't reached yet and they kind of were teaching her something about it in their way.

[7:40]I think there's a kind of strange gratitude in that maybe that's part of what allows the reader if the reader likes the story to feel like a quick connection to them as well.

[7:50]And then in other stories about the character who goes to I think it was Tel Aviv and has and inherits her father's apartment and starts following the strange man who comes in and starts clicking her dinner.

[8:01]And then in the name of that story, but I can look it up really fast.

[8:04]That's what I was called. I am asleep, but my heart is awake, which is a sound of sounds. Yeah.

[8:10]So that story was fantastic, but almost harder to imagine like a little bit on the outer reaches of the suspension of disbelief, right, which she really followed him this far.

[8:21]How would you gotten back like so I feel like at times you kind of play with our imagination a little and like push the envelope.

[8:29]That one story in particular, because that story is like sort of predicated on this idea that a man can arrive inexplicably into one's apartment and then have an ability to sleep and sleep like the dead in some sense.

[8:44]So there's a question, of course, of like whether that story is real in the way that we think of like, you know, realism or whether it's real in a more soul level.

[8:56]I mean, it's a story about the question of the existence of the soul and what happens to soul after death.

[9:01]So I think that there I was willing to kind of let the reader, I hope that the reader would let disband with their suspend their disbelief a little bit in order to go to sort of, you know, where the story emotionally wanted to go.

[9:16]But most of the other stories are more realistic, but there are a couple that are like that. The husband is also a little bit another one of this kind of stories that asked the reader to kind of leap off into something perhaps more imaginary.

[9:33]The line that stuck with me the most or the thought I should say is that the apartment that this woman inherits of her father. She realizes like, oh, is this who he really was and where we had been living all this time because the mother had passed away had that just sort of been a front and yet that was her entire life.

[9:51]And here she was in this other place, which seems so fundamental to who he was as a person. And yet she was just meeting it after he passed away.

[10:00]such a way that a lot of us, even if we don't have a parent who comes from one country and raises

[10:06]us in another country, then we go back to that origin country and understand like, oh, this is

[10:10]what this is the place that made my parent and it gives all this new access to them. I think even

[10:15]we don't have that experience. All of us at some point are other come to understand that our parents

[10:21]are adults with their own secret private lives that as children we didn't know about or do you

[10:26]want to know about or they didn't tell us about and I think that like coming to terms with

[10:31]one's parents like other life as a not as a parent is really an interesting thing and it happens

[10:36]in stages it happens like first probably more teenagers and then it happens throughout life like as

[10:42]we go through the things we watch them do like have our children we understand oh my god this is

[10:47]what they must have been thinking or feeling and then of course you know I think as they get older

[10:52]passed away we go through their things we find out all these other I mean I know so many incredible

[10:57]stories of you know people finding out whole other lives about their parents lived they didn't know

[11:02]that so I think all of that was on my mind in that story like what happens after a parent dies and

[11:08]what is left and what do you can go on discovering about them and has that happened to you?

[11:14]No thank goodness my parents are both alive thank you for asking but yeah they are still well

[11:20]good and do you have it seems like you have a close connection with Israel or what is that

[11:27]experience and sort of most of your work what is that about? Well I mean it's just like a place

[11:32]that just kind of another I want to say I wanted to say another version of home but I always

[11:38]have trouble with the notion of like home as a place because my family comes from so many places

[11:43]and growing up we never were encouraged to kind of commit to any one place as an idea of home

[11:48]like America was where we were being raised but we were from Europe we were you know Israel

[11:54]was the place of where everyone in the family met fell in love got married etc you know so

[12:01]it's just a place that I've been going to on my life and it's become another alternative

[12:08]as a place to draw on as a writer and it has I find that as a writer I mean I feel such a connection

[12:14]to it I know it so well right but I feel like as a writer it provides me something different than

[12:19]let's say New York which is my other sort of local geography provides me like New York has

[12:26]wonderful things and people and strange contradictions in its life and and Israel has a totally

[12:34]different set of those right so like there's you know the whole system of values in the societies

[12:40]completely different the levels of intensity are different just I and I find that those things

[12:44]to go back and forth between the sort of hot and cold of those environments in some way

[12:50]just gives me a lot and and I wouldn't want to give up either one and of course you know I've

[12:56]set I've set novels and stories in a lot of places I mean London England was a big part of

[13:02]great house and there are stories here set in Switzerland as you mentioned in Japan and South

[13:08]America so I'm certainly a person like drawn to geography as like a way to reach ideas or feeling

[13:16]in fictional narratives interesting I didn't mean to suggest that you only were you were like a

[13:21]one location pony but right just point out that that's a place that is like paramount to my work

[13:29]and certainly in the last novel and in these stories absolutely yeah and do you find is it more

[13:34]place specific or do you also feel like the religion is the key factor I'm not a person but I

[13:40]think it's more it has more to do with like 3000 plus years of history like you know America is such

[13:47]a new place but Israel it's like every stone in the ground it's like sings with history and

[13:54]I think the complexity of that combined with like a society that is very state it's very very

[14:00]new and you know people trying to make them invent themselves I think all of that is very very

[14:05]rich material and I think you know just there's just there's so many things that

[14:11]call me there you know it's one of the places where it's like so intense as a writer and like you

[14:15]can go and gather like 40 stories but you're exhausted afterwards and like New York I find it's

[14:21]much better for actually work to get work done I'm no must never get work done Tel Aviv I just

[14:26]I do the kind of abstract work of gathering lots of stories and experience or such New York is a

[14:33]place where of course everyone is working all the time and so you don't feel like you're missing

[14:38]like the beach and the you know restaurants and the life and friendship that seems to be

[14:44]everywhere and Tel Aviv yeah I feel like the whole culture here I'm also in New York is

[14:49]is if you're like walking around the park all day people are thinking what you know what is she

[14:54]doing you know whereas where is you are working like you can be thinking and brainstorming and

[14:59]creating and doing all this essential work that you need to do before you sit down and put stuff

[15:04]on paper but I don't know it's sort of a culture of like why are you not running somewhere else

[15:08]after at times very I mean that's a very that sort of work as a religion is a very American

[15:16]you know ideal and in New York it's just only exaggerated but it is remarkable when you grow up

[15:22]with that and then you go elsewhere to like the Mediterranean or to India or wherever you know

[15:28]Morocco and you just realizes it's not the values of everyone else in the world you know like everyone

[15:34]wants to live and to get by and survive but like work as a definition of self is like a

[15:40]peculiar really American thing so I think it takes work to distance oneself from that idea

[15:48]yes New York particularly has its clutches and a lot of different sort of things we need to

[15:53]extricate for ourselves to have a healthy life yeah and one place does these days yeah that's true

[15:59]well yeah now in particular yeah so tell me more about how you got to this place in your career

[16:06]when did you know you were a writer and how did you really get started and then

[16:11]how did you not give up along the way well I really started that where a lot of writers too

[16:16]when I was a teenager like 14 I'm it's very specific moment because I I had this older I was

[16:24]in ninth grade I was older friend it was a senior and he was writing poetry and so like sort of became

[16:29]this way of kind of inventing myself which is what all teenagers are in the process of doing

[16:37]right they're like trying on different selves very very quickly and I think the discovery that

[16:42]language was a medium in which that could happen with like enormous speed but also like breath

[16:48]you know you can become so many things in the page right and I think that was very attractive to

[16:53]me and I so I stayed writing poetry for a long time I thought that that's what I wanted to do and

[16:58]it was just really much later when I was already finished with college that I started to write

[17:03]fiction actually finished with graduate school too I started my first novel man walks into

[17:07]room was like the first time I really started to write fiction and I was 25 when I wrote that

[17:12]and I just you know I've been going since then since I was 15 I've been at it I guess

[17:17]and you know in terms of like not being discouraged like I've been discouraged in million times

[17:21]but it's just like it's so deeply at this point so deeply part of how I process life and relate

[17:29]to the world and relate to other people how I keep them balanced with experience and feeling and

[17:35]communicate all those things it's just like so it's so much where I am that I can't I can no

[17:40]longer like take it out of me or just like you know give use tell you why I do it or why I go on

[17:47]doing it just like kind of breathing for me somebody another writer I interviewed at one point

[17:53]or author I should say compared it to dreaming she's like I you know it just dreams happen

[17:57]you they always come you always have them except that like writing doesn't always come which is

[18:03]really interesting right like you know I mean I think you always need it I mean I always needed

[18:09]but doesn't there's not always fluency I find but that's a moment is that do you write where you

[18:16]are now like is this your workspace I was in my right workspace until until we we decided to like

[18:23]drag you across the apartment and then what I thought all the way off and sit here and work

[18:28]because this is actually a rocking chair so it's very I don't know why I don't give it away

[18:32]it's us to where I like nurse my kids but I just it's extremely comfortable but yeah I tend to

[18:41]sit in the same couple of chairs to work I guess it's the days of the coffee shop so writing or

[18:49]you know there was a top writer I just find it too distracting I find other people too fascinating

[18:55]I just want to look at people and understand what's going on and I can't focus on my work so

[19:00]I have to be alone and do you find that in your own like friendships say or relationships or if you

[19:06]go to have a dinner with a friend or something like that that you apply that same sort of analysis

[19:12]if you will or observation where you're trying to figure things out in like every situation

[19:16]you're in do you know what I mean like are you always sort of mining unconsciously for material in

[19:21]a way right unfortunately yes I mean as all of my friends know but my first thoughts your question

[19:28]was like I think that there's like a psychological machine in some of our brains that is constantly

[19:34]trying to understand like people's motivations and to understand the subtext of what they're

[19:40]not saying what they're saying and to try to make sense behind the scenes of what's visible on the

[19:47]surface of the conversation or the person and yes I can't dismantle that that's always at play

[19:53]and for better for worse in terms of material I mean yeah as I get older this is more and more

[20:00]problematic because more and more interesting things happen to all of us as we get older all around us or fascinating things happen to everyone. It seems like as we all enter midlife and this question of like material and using material has been an interesting one. There is a story in the book, the title story to be a man that involved, you know, kind of agreement with certain people that I would use certain material and with their blessing.

[20:27]And I think, you know, it really does. There are writers who certainly don't ask for the blessings of the people who's material all the way. They borrow or steal, but it does matter a lot to me that I don't betray confidence.

[20:43]On the other hand, again, I feel like it comes down to for I hope it comes down to certain kind of compassion, like when you feel compassion for the people you're writing about, even if you expose a vulnerability or fragility, a mistake, whatever.

[21:00]The end, like you're holding up them up in the human light, right? Like that's the goal. And so in the end, there's like the love of attentiveness. I guess like what it is to attend to something and look at them and try to understand them. So my hope is that that is always what comes through.

[21:16]And I think so far has I haven't offended anyone yet lost any any dear ones, but you know, I let's let's hope for the best.

[21:28]I read this article about you in L not to like, you know, snoop or anything, but just to find out more and let me see if I can find the quote of course now and I can be able to find it.

[21:37]But you were talking about divorce and I'm particularly interested as I got divorced about five years ago or so. And I'm always like reading up on it and all this stuff. And you had said something like that.

[21:48]I do something was a miss. And yet you didn't know what to do with that information similar to knowing that the afterlife might not exist, but not knowing how to handle that in the day to day life either.

[21:58]That's a cool from first start. So sorry. I'm so sorry.

[22:02]I am often that mistake is often made this sense that I am continuous with her. But that's my own book because I gave her my name. But that yeah that's I remember writing that line.

[22:14]So the question is really how do you, especially in a life event like this where I at least felt like the ground kind of shook under me and everything had to sort of be reimagined.

[22:26]How do you then take that experience and put that into writing without I guess betraying.

[22:33]Back to our other question of mining for material. How do you use that and help yourself through whatever experience you're going through in the best like literary way, I guess.

[22:43]No, I guess for that one for my divorce. I didn't have a hard time with that because I didn't write about that. I feel like one of the mistakes.

[22:53]Our critical mistakes of writing about forest arc was the notion that it's a book about divorce, but it isn't. I mean the divorce doesn't happen in the book. It's it's about a woman who understands that she's reached a moment in her life or she can no longer sustain the forms that she's committed to one of which is her marriage.

[23:11]The divorce doesn't actually take place in the book. It's just her journey kind of in turn herself really. And so I didn't because that book wasn't about divorce and it wasn't specifically about what it is to have a husband or any specific husband at all.

[23:26]And I do think there are certain areas. The one that comes jumps most readily to minus one's children. There are certain things that you just cannot. You know, there are lines you cannot cross and that I feel very strongly about. So I didn't have that issue in my work, but I think the kind of things I'm thinking about are like, you know, I don't know, friends or lovers or parents or siblings.

[23:50]You know, those kinds of things, you know, where you sort of it's a slightly different situation. And what are you already at work on your next big project or are you making a minute?

[24:00]Both. I mean, I'm always working. I am always writing. I'm trying to find my way into a new novel, which is always a kind of long process for me, but a pretty playful one at this point in my life. It wasn't always. But so I'm playing with a few ideas and working on things.

[24:16]But I don't yet feel that I'm like in the, that I found the vein that I'm going to mine for the novel. Let's put it that way. But yeah, I wrote a story during quarantine that's coming out and harbors their next issue.

[24:29]And then I thought, okay, maybe I'll put aside short stores for now and really try to get into a novel. So we'll see.

[24:36]And is it just like when the mood strikes?

[24:38]No, no, I'm a pretty disciplined worker. I work every day. So I think when I'm in this stage, I'm reading a lot. And I'm, and you know, normally I would say I'm living a lot like in order to acquire or simulate experience, but like living a lot. I don't even know what that means in times of COVID, right?

[24:55]Yeah, what does it live a lot now. And so that's been interesting, particularly because my life has been in these last.

[25:04]We have already seven years been deliberately designed to allow for like maximal experience. And so how can one do that or can one not do that, you know, and now I just have to, you know, burrow in. So we'll see.

[25:21]that happens. And I guess I'll let it material the draw. Thanks. And the ranks there. Yeah, time to open up the vault and go back.

[25:30]Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? Well, I mean, I guess there's, you know, the only thing I ever think to say is just like it really requires like doing it constantly.

[25:42]And I think a lot of times people imagine so many people imagine that they have a book in them. And I think we all do like the book and all of us is like the self that's the book for all writing.

[25:54]But in order to actually translate that or some part of that into a real book, it like really requires just like the doing like the daily doing of that.

[26:02]And it seems like like obvious advice, but I think very few people actually take it honestly. I think a lot of people sort of think about writing or imagine writing or want to write or see the value of writing.

[26:14]But don't like go to the hard effort of like putting language on a page day in and day out. And that's the only way anything ever gets written.

[26:24]Yeah, is there any last question just wondering like what are you reading now? What do you like to read?

[26:30]I'm reading this right now, which is beautiful. It's landscapes by John Berger.

[26:35]I don't know if you've read John Berger, but he's absolutely one of the most wonderful writers to read and I loved his book portraits, which is sort of a lot of his art criticism about

[26:44]literature and I just picked this one up and of course he's written novels as well and all kinds of essays, but he's just he's no longer with this he did a couple of years ago, but he really was one of our gems, I think.

[26:55]Well, thanks for chatting with me today.

[26:59]It's been such an honor to talk to you because I've been following you for so long and this has been so nice.

[27:05]Thank you for making the time for me. I really appreciate my pleasure. Have a great day.

[27:11]Bye bye.

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