"The Hitchhiker's Guide has not been an opera. It has however been a tapestry, if you count a woven bath towel as a tapestry." -- Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
Nicholson Baker, Iain Pears, Adam Thorpe and David Wroblewski talk to Charles Foran about imagining yourself into people and places in order to write what you
don't know.
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Nicholson Baker is the author of several novels, including The Mezzanine, Vox and The Fermata, and four works of non-fiction: U and I, The Size of Thoughts, Double Fold (winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award), and Human Smoke. Baker’s new novel, The Anthologist, is narrated by Paul Chowder, a poet whose career is falling apart. As Chowder struggles to write, he gradually realizes he is no longer writing an introduction to his poetry, but a tender, romantic, often hilarious novel.
Charles Foran is the author of eight books, including four novels. His most recent release is the essay collection Join the Revolution, Comrade. A contributing reviewer for the Globe and Mail, he is writing a biography of Mordecai Richler.
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Iain Pears’ books include the bestsellers An Instance of the Fingerpost and The Dream of Scipio; a novella, The Portrait; and a series of acclaimed detective novels featuring art historian Jonathan Argyll. Pears returns with Stone’s Fall, his first full-length thriller since his groundbreaking debut. Shifting from London to Paris to Venice during the decades preceding WWI, it is an intricately plotted tale of murder, high-stakes international finance, and the roots of the 20th-century arms race.
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Adam Thorpe (France/UK) was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992, and he has written eight others – most recently The Standing Pool – two collections of stories and five books of poetry. The UK Independent called him “a marvel among contemporary British novelists.” Thorpe presents his latest novel, Hodd, which takes the form of a medieval document rescued from a ruined church on the Somme, and which provides a possible answer to the famous question: Who was Robin Hood?
David Wroblewski shot to literary fame on the publication of his debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Endorsed by stars from Stephen King (“I flat-out loved [it]”), to Richard Russo (“I doubt we’ll see a finer literary debut this year”), to Oprah Winfrey, who chose it as one of her book club titles, the novel became an international bestseller. A coming-of-age tale in the vein of Hamlet, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle – now out in paperback – tells of a mute boy nurtured by a close relationship with his dogs.
