Peter Carey on Alexis de Tocqueville, writing fiction and the inspiration for his forthcoming novel.
In this exclusive interview, Peter Carey, the two-time Booker Prize-winning novelist, talks to Granta editor John Freeman about the origins and inspiration for his forthcoming novel, Parrot and Olivier in America, an excerpt of which appears in Granta 108: ‘Chicago’, Alexis de Tocqueville and the ‘ongoing argument of American democracy’ and the pleasures and perils of writing fiction.
Photograph © Geraint Lewis/REX
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘I lost my own father at 12 yrs. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences’.
‘You might think, who is this, and I might say, this is God, and what are you to do?’
‘We talked about Alison’s blood. We asked her what she thought this mystery could be. Really what we wanted was to be told that everything was OK. There was a look on Alison's face when she asked. I cannot describe it, but it was not a face seeking medical “facts”.’
‘I tell my dead father if he gives any more advice that rhymes, I’ll leave this story unfinished.’
Fiction by Idra Novey.
‘No person or doll had anatomy like that. It was, she reasoned, some mistake, a dud in the assembly line, but something about it felt special, auspicious.’
A story by Adrian Van Young.
‘Leafing through old issues is like marvelling at the showroom of a renowned jeweller.’
