Catherine Lacey discuses voice, characterization and the minute details that bring a story to life
Granta Magazine’s Luke Neima speaks to Catherine Lacey, the author of The Answers, about being one of Granta’s 2017 Best of Young American Novelists. They discuss her latest novel, micro-interactions in literature and translating emotional relationships into prose.
‘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’d had quite enough of everything. I vowed to no longer mistake obedience for love.’
Fiction by Catherine Lacey.
‘Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.’
An extract from Biography of X by Catherine Lacey.
‘The church has no thoughts. The church is brick and glass. If they ever slept there, they would see that.’
Catherine Lacey shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.
‘And each time I hit the tarmac I had this terrible feeling that the trip I’d just taken had never even happened, that I’d spent hundreds for a memory I could barely recall.’
‘This was the wild bunch that peopled my childhood nightmares.’
