Jonathan Evison
Jonathan Evison
Jonathan Evison, is an American writer best known for his novels All About Lulu, West of Here, and The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. His work, often distinguished by its emotional resonance and offbeat humor, has been compared by critics to a variety of authors, most notably J.D. Salinger, Charles Dickens, T.C. Boyle, and John Irving. Sherman Alexie has called Evison "the most honest white man alive." His debut novel, All About Lulu, published in 2008 by Soft Skull Press, won...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
I really believe in challenging myself, pushing myself to new places.
I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.
You have to smile, if you expect anybody to smile back.
Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you've ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you've ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you've ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible.
For me, an ideal novel is a dialogue between writer and reader, both a collaborative experience and an intimate exchange of emotions and ideas. The reader just might be the most powerful tool in a writer's arsenal.
So often when we historicize material, we use this big wide-angle lens.
There are holes in our lives that can never be filled - not really, not ever.
Most everything that happens to me in any significant sense finds its way into my fiction.
I just need to believe that we're not in some form of stasis, that we can try to be whoever we want to be. We probably won't get there, but we might get a little bit closer, you know?
I never wanted to be anything but a writer, and I never let go of it.
I've been blessed with an optimistic disposition, I think.