Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethemis an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth19 February 1964
CountryUnited States of America
book good-luck way
I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.
summer thinking sky
How often had that hydrant even been opened? Did you jet water through a car window, what, twice at best? Summer burned just a few afternoons long, in the end. As for flying, Dose never even glanced at the sky. Flying was a summer within a summer, a whim. So why think of it at all?
apology mirrors want
Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror
couple people guy
Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.
writing littles esoteric
As much as I revere great writing, and am still humbled by it, literary activities are no longer esoteric to me. When I read a great novel - something that I could never have written myself - I'm still looking at it a little bit like a technician.
self self-pity pity
But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.
home doe alternatives
...Don't rupture another's illusion unless you're positive the alternative you offer is more worthwhile than that from which you're wrenching them. Interrogate your solipsism: Does it offer any better a home than the delusions you're reaching to shatter?
moving book writing
I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction - I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow, I keep myself sane.
book shapes holograms
I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram.
perfection way illusion
I'm gregarious with writers and never with manuscripts . . . I [like to] create the illusion of seamless perfection, so I alone know the flawed homely process along the way.
writing space long
I plan less and less. It's a great benefit of writing lots, that you get good at holding long narratives in your head like a virtual space.
confused boundaries genre
I had always wanted to be a writer who confused genre boundaries and who was read in multiple contexts.
keys firsts pretending
The key to mostly anything is pretending your first time *isn't*.
soul substance utterance
The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism,