make me twitchy and cranky, though I’ll usually go to the spin-off movies. The films make me equally twitchy and cranky, but there’s my fannish pleasure in watching impossible science and impossibly beautiful people blow impossible shit up real good. And they give me lots of food for thought and ranting about everything from bad physics (when I can pick up on the incorrect science in a film, it’s
really
fucking incorrect) to messed-up gender politics. Comics thrill me. They make me wish I were a comic artist.
You are often called a magical realist. Is that just a euphemism for fantasy, like speculative fiction for SF? Or does it actually get at something?
I haven’t read tons of magical realism. I don’t have as informed a feel for what magical realist writing does as I do for fantasy and SF. I sometimes feel that in magical realism (in literature, not in art), the supernatural elements are conceits that don’t have to be followed through as rigorously as we demand from fantasy. It seems to me that in magical realism, the story as a whole takes precedence. The supernatural elements are only one of its parts. In fantasy, the fantastical elements are as central as plot and character. I think.
I love your description of geeks as people who “know too much about too many things that other people don’t care about.” What then are literary snobs?
I think the main difference is that all geeks aren’t snobs, whereas all snobs are snobs.
Do you read V.S. Naipaul? Do you like Naipaul?
I read his earlier short story collection
Miguel Street
over and over when I was a kid. I really liked it. I think it still holds up fairly well, but I haven’t read his newer work. He is, of course, notorious amongst his fellow Caribbean writers and everyone else for his outrageously racist and sexist statements. I don’t like those. But I find him easy to ignore.
What kind of car do you drive? (I ask every author this.)
I don’t have a car. You don’t need one in Toronto. I believe the last time I owned a car was twenty-three years ago. I don’t remember what kind it was. It was red. I hated it. I don’t like cars. I don’t like the expense, the maintenance, the danger of driving them, what they’ve done to the planet. Now that I spend part of the year in Southern California, I may have to get a car. This part of the world is built around the assumption of people having cars. It’s difficult to get around without one and I have fibromyalgia. I get tired.
James Joyce never went back to Ireland. Do you see yourself growing old in Canada, or in the Caribbean? (Or growing old at all?)
I don’t know where I’ll grow old. Perhaps moving back and forth between a couple of places. The Caribbean is the home of my heart, but no one place has everything I’d want as a permanent home. Wherever it is, it’ll probably be a big, socially progressive city with lots of cultural, linguistic, ethnic and racial variety, lots of black people, a mild climate, and a large body of water nearby. I haven’t yet found a city that has all those things. I do plan on growing old, and I’m simultaneously terrified of it. I’m fifty-one years old, and the past few years as I entered what may be the latter half of my life were hellish. I experienced escalating illness, which led to destitution, homelessness, and near loss of my career as a writer. Things seem to be stabilizing now. I’m addressing the health concerns that can be addressed, I’m writing again, and I now havea professorship that is going a long way toward stabilizing my income. My primary (life) partner and I not only stayed together during those horrible years, but I think our relationship came out of it stronger. That in itself is a miracle, and unutterably precious. And yet I’m constantly aware that it’s all temporary, that getting older will probably bring more and perhaps worse physical affliction to me and to my loved ones. Certainly, the longer I stay alive, it’ll
really
fucking incorrect) to messed-up gender politics. Comics thrill me. They make me wish I were a comic artist.
You are often called a magical realist. Is that just a euphemism for fantasy, like speculative fiction for SF? Or does it actually get at something?
I haven’t read tons of magical realism. I don’t have as informed a feel for what magical realist writing does as I do for fantasy and SF. I sometimes feel that in magical realism (in literature, not in art), the supernatural elements are conceits that don’t have to be followed through as rigorously as we demand from fantasy. It seems to me that in magical realism, the story as a whole takes precedence. The supernatural elements are only one of its parts. In fantasy, the fantastical elements are as central as plot and character. I think.
I love your description of geeks as people who “know too much about too many things that other people don’t care about.” What then are literary snobs?
I think the main difference is that all geeks aren’t snobs, whereas all snobs are snobs.
Do you read V.S. Naipaul? Do you like Naipaul?
I read his earlier short story collection
Miguel Street
over and over when I was a kid. I really liked it. I think it still holds up fairly well, but I haven’t read his newer work. He is, of course, notorious amongst his fellow Caribbean writers and everyone else for his outrageously racist and sexist statements. I don’t like those. But I find him easy to ignore.
What kind of car do you drive? (I ask every author this.)
I don’t have a car. You don’t need one in Toronto. I believe the last time I owned a car was twenty-three years ago. I don’t remember what kind it was. It was red. I hated it. I don’t like cars. I don’t like the expense, the maintenance, the danger of driving them, what they’ve done to the planet. Now that I spend part of the year in Southern California, I may have to get a car. This part of the world is built around the assumption of people having cars. It’s difficult to get around without one and I have fibromyalgia. I get tired.
James Joyce never went back to Ireland. Do you see yourself growing old in Canada, or in the Caribbean? (Or growing old at all?)
I don’t know where I’ll grow old. Perhaps moving back and forth between a couple of places. The Caribbean is the home of my heart, but no one place has everything I’d want as a permanent home. Wherever it is, it’ll probably be a big, socially progressive city with lots of cultural, linguistic, ethnic and racial variety, lots of black people, a mild climate, and a large body of water nearby. I haven’t yet found a city that has all those things. I do plan on growing old, and I’m simultaneously terrified of it. I’m fifty-one years old, and the past few years as I entered what may be the latter half of my life were hellish. I experienced escalating illness, which led to destitution, homelessness, and near loss of my career as a writer. Things seem to be stabilizing now. I’m addressing the health concerns that can be addressed, I’m writing again, and I now havea professorship that is going a long way toward stabilizing my income. My primary (life) partner and I not only stayed together during those horrible years, but I think our relationship came out of it stronger. That in itself is a miracle, and unutterably precious. And yet I’m constantly aware that it’s all temporary, that getting older will probably bring more and perhaps worse physical affliction to me and to my loved ones. Certainly, the longer I stay alive, it’ll
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