Tom Rachman
Tom Rachman
Tom Rachman is an English/Canadian novelist. His debut novel is The Imperfectionists, published in 2010 by Dial Press, an imprint of Random House. The book has been published in 25 languages...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
aggressive drawn encounter high shocking work worse
There are journalists who are drawn to the most extroverted, aggressive jobs because they get an ego high from it. It can be shocking to encounter them and even worse to work with them.
accustomed ask content given happened hard initially newspapers pay people
The question I ask myself is what would have happened if newspapers hadn't initially given their content away for free on the Internet. It's so hard to get people to pay once they are accustomed to having something for free.
history mind nyu school study theory toronto university
I went to the University of Toronto to study the history and theory of film, in the back of my mind thinking I'd go to NYU film school and see if I could make a career of it.
agency news rarely time york
My own career started in New York at the 'Associated Press', a fast-paced news agency where we rarely had time for deep reporting.
among elements favorite obituaries proper stories
Obituaries were among my favorite to write because they have elements no other news stories have - a story from start to finish with a proper conclusion.
ashamed collection embarrass nor pretend slightly weird
Many things embarrass me, but reading isn't one of them. I'm not ashamed of my slightly weird collection of prison memoirs. Nor the flaky meditation books. After all, I can pretend I never read those.
fit reporter seen truth
I had pictured journalism as I'd seen it in the most ennobling films, where the reporter battles for the truth, propelled by conviction, and is triumphant. There are journalists who fit that ideal.
fill notion pages toss
At the outset, my notion of being a writer was that you would have moments of inspiration and moments of frustration, when you'd crumple up your pages and toss them away. On one side, the dustbin would fill up, and on the other side, pages would rise into a novel.
strength
The strength of fiction is not in reading about yourself, but in reading about other people.
art constantly expanding pushing
What the art world has done, it has been constantly been pushing the boundaries about what art can be. It's like expanding its territory.
swimming fighting pages
Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.
art talked
I don't like most contemporary art. But I think if you talked to any person who's heavily involved in contemporary art, they'd say the same thing. If you go to a biennale, you don't expect to like much of it.
drawn eventually experience fiction gain hope hoped intent question thrilling
My intent was to gain experience for fiction I eventually hoped to write. But there's no question I was drawn in by the hope that journalism would be a creative, thrilling environment.
family precocious
I hadn't been a particularly precocious reader, but everybody else in my family was.