This Writing Life

In the second part of my interview with Tom Drury, one of America's finest living novelists, we begin by discussing the railroad and its part in linking places like Grouse County to the outside world. 
----more----We then moved on to: 

• his parents
• radio, television and Drury's writing
• the characters Dan and Louise Norman in The End of Vandalism
• endings and alternate endings
• 'In the old days, we tried in government to do good things for people. Why did we do that?'
• media and modern American politics
• 'It's like the Bookmobile. They were doing something good for people. I see less and less of that spirit.'
• Drury on Obama
• 'What are seeing is that our politics can be stopped'
• 'I do feel like even the idea of doing good things for people has been devalued'
• why Drury doesn't watch television
• Drury on The Brothers Karamazov, Shakespeare, Don DeLillo's White Noise
• Drury on comic, digressive fiction
• 'I don't have a theme'
• is Drury the most underrated novelist in America
• 2015 is the year of Tom Drury (Awesome)
• 'If you stay around long enough...one is constantly discovered'
• 'I don't want to tell you what to think'
• on Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
• on writing and money
• 'If you start writing thinking you are going to earn a lot of money, maybe this isn't the best choice
• life, death and dogs in Grouse County
• 'Rather than write about international events I try to write about personal events and individual lives'
• the character of Charles 'Tiny' Darling and Tom Drury
• on the autobiographical nature of his work
• the central character of Louise Darling
• ambivalent feelings about Grouse County
• 'I feel like there are parts of all of them that are connected to the life that I've had'