In the fourth and penultimate part of our podcast with David Gates, we set out by talking about money - how to earn it, keep writing, earn money from writing.
----more----Gates recalls his 29 years at Newsweek before shifting to:
- how long he can write at any one stretch
- being a relatively late-starter
- 'There is something quaint and old-fashioned about being a writer'
- Desolation Row - music vs literature
- literary critical ambitions: dissertations and elaborate theories
- Ann Beattie - marriage and inspiration
- 'I was astonished that she was making literature out of lives like ours...It never occurred to me'
- working off influence: 'I cannot be Beckett...How can I be me?'
- Barthelme, Pynchon - postmodernism?
- Gates and music: 'I can see why you would devote your life to that if you could have that hour of absolutely transcendent beauty'
- Gates and religion: 'I am so glad you asked about that...'
- Gates, romance, divorce: 'Do we have trouble with intimacy? Did I sit around thinking too much?'
- characters and temporariness.
The fifth and final part to follow.
