Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Happy Writer

Happiness: A Personal Ordeal.

BL: But you also knew from early on that it would be an uphill struggle. Tracing your family tree back several generations, you couldn’t find any cases of mental illness, alcoholism, or physical abuse.
CS: My father’s great-aunt was known as Weepy Clara, but that’s about all I was able to uncover.
BL: At Princeton you tried compensating for this absence of material.
CS: Yes, I told my roommates that my mother was a Vegas hooker, and that my father had been assassinated running drugs in Colombia.
BL: When did you realize that there is a place for happiness in literature?
CS: I think it was in business school, when I read Lee Iacocca’s autobiography. It was then that I appreciated that not all books have to be about alienations, madness, and death.
BL: And so you decided to write the happiest story you know?
CS: Yes-the story of my life.

Douglas. L, & George. A. Sense and NonSensibility-Lampoons of learning and literature.

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