Category Archives: Interviews

Interview in The New Yorker’s Book Bench

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January 17, 2012
THE EXCHANGE: STEWART O’NAN
Posted by Jon Michaud

O’Nan, the author of a dozen novels and co-author, with Stephen King, of a book about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, kindly agreed to answer questions from his home in Pittsburgh.

“The Odds” is set almost entirely at Niagara Falls. Aside from the Falls’ reputation as a honeymoon destination, what drew you to this setting?

I wanted Art and Marion to work out their private feelings in a public space, and one most people know. Niagara Falls is a fantasyland, both natural and artificial, beautiful and ugly, American and Canadian. We associate it with corny, old-time romance but also with risk and danger, so it seemed like a perfect stage for a pair of reluctant daredevils.

[read the full interview]

The TNB Book Club Interview

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On April 30, Stewart participated in an online chat for The Nervous Breakdown’s book club:

Brad Listi (BL): Three minutes, ladies and gentlemen.

Stewart O’Nan (SO): Gotta warm up my Magic 8-ball.

BL: (He’s not referring to cocaine, ladies and gentlemen.)

SO: I was gonna say — not a Belushi reference.

[THREE MINUTES ELAPSE.]

BL: Okay…I believe we’ve reached the top of the hour. Let’s get started. I want to begin by thanking Stewart O’Nan for taking the time to be here this evening. It’s a thrill to have you, Stewart, and congrats on Emily, Alone.

SO: Thanks for having me and Emily (and Rufus).

BL: In this book, you’re writing an older female protagonist. The level of detail you’re able to deliver about that experience is pretty striking. I’m curious if you did any research here, or if you’re simply working from life experience and imagination.

SO: I did a fair amount of research. Handed out questionnaires to older folks at my library readings. And kept several notebooks to get closer to Emily and her world in Pittsburgh.

BL: Can you describe these questionnaires?

SO: I’d ask people how their neighborhoods had changed, and if there were neighbors who were no longer there whom they missed. I asked for three places they went to every week, who they wished they saw more in their lives, what’s become harder the older they’ve gotten.

BL: You tend to write about people “unlike” yourself,  to work “from the outside, in,” as opposed to the other way around. Do you feel this is a fair assessment?

SO: Maybe. I mean, I think I share the emotional worlds of my characters even if I’m not like them in age, gender, race, class, or even region sometimes. I like to find out how it feels to be someone else, what they go through, what’s important to them — and I think that that is usually the same. We want to be understood by the people closest to us.

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Four Guys, One Book

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1. A review of Emily, Alone by Three Guys One Book:

JE: It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Stewart O’Nan. His winning combination of pathos, intelligence, curiosity and heroic range, make the dude a national treasure. Like Steinbeck (and Dickens and Twain), O’Nan writes about “the little people.” He’s a bard for the blue collar, reporting on the quiet and sometimes desperate lives of decent folks who may not be making headlines with their heroism, but in whom we recognize ourselves with a clarity that is all too rare in modern literature.

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2. An in-depth conversation with Edward Champion (Bat Segundo Show):

I had interviewed Stewart O’Nan before in 2007 for The Bat Segundo Show. And after reading Emily, Alone, I had hoped to set up a second interview. Unfortunately, O’Nan’s hectic schedule of teaching and long driving to author events made things a bit difficult. And when I received an unexpected jury duty summons in the mail, I prepared for the distinct possibility that a few weeks of my life would be sacrificed to the courtroom.

We started volleying by email. And the two of us learned that we both had quite a lot to say about American fiction. Our conversation touched upon the influence of Richard Yates, what a writer can learn from John Gardner, avoiding parody and creating dimensional characters, and how one can protest marketplace realities while appealing to the reader. My many thanks to Stewart for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my somewhat verbose concatenations.

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