Victor LaValle
Victor LaValle
Victor LaValleis an American author who was raised in the Flushing and Rosedale neighborhoods of Queens, New York. He is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus and three novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine and The Devil in Silver. LaValle writes fiction primarily, though he has also written essays and book reviews for GQ, Essence Magazine, The Fader, and The Washington Post, among others...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 February 1972
CountryUnited States of America
Empathy is what separates human beings from teenage boys.
A little style is a good thing, but you can’t trust a person who won’t be ugly in front of you.
I have my teachers who tell me what to do. I'm not quite old enough yet to be truly independent.
Nearly everyone could be undone by an old woman's displeasure.
Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it’s done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I’ll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It’s not as romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too.
Whether it was H. P. Lovecraft's doomed towns or Shirley Jackson's lonely, looming 'The Haunting of Hill House,' the boondocks had all the fun. As a black kid in Queens, New York, I couldn't have felt more removed.
Booksellers are the bartenders of the reading world. People share thoughts and interests they keep private from others in their lives.
I wanted to write a story set in the Lovecraftian universe that didn't gloss over the uglier implications of his worldview.
It's tough to write beautifully about ugly things, but Mitchell S. Jackson makes it look easy.
Lonely women destroy themselves; lonely men threaten the world.
People use the notion of God to bully people and hurt people, when we can use the concept to respect and uplift.
Since Queens is the most ethnically diverse plot of land on Earth, we had tenants from all over the globe. The whole world in one building.
'The Sundial' is written with the kind of humor that would make a guillotine laugh.
You can't write a story about a mental hospital in the United States without facing the grand example of 'Cuckoo's Nest.'