Bomb

Starred review from September 22, 2014
This essential new anthology from Bomb magazine offers a rich trove of author interviews. The 35 selections span 30 years, revealing many of the subjects at the height of their fame: Jonathan Franzen in 2001, Martin Amis in 1987, and Kathy Acker in 1983, to name a few. The interviews are not conducted with nameless interlocutorsârather, they're conversations between colleagues: Lydia Davis talks with Francine Prose, Junot Díaz with Edwidge Danticat, Jeffrey Eugenides with Jonathan Safran Foer, and Tobias Wolff with A.M. Homes. The collection format makes it easy to dip inâreaders may succumb to the temptation to skip right to a favorite author's interview. Insights abound, with some writers revealing intensely personal feelings and others focusing on books, writing, and broader ideas about literature. Some of the interviewees, such as Charles Simic and Wayne Koestenbaum, seem so at ease with their interlocutors that reading their discussions feels akin to eavesdropping. In his interview, Roberto Bolaño bristles at the idea that his work is a self-portrait, yet each of these selections provides a captivating image of the author in his or her own words. Through the diverse range of voices represented, the book affords a window into the minds and the writing processes of some of the world's best practitioners of poetry and prose.

October 1, 2014
A co-founder and editor in chief of Bomb, the quarterly devoted to artists and writers, offers a wide-ranging selection of interviews-author on author-that spans the history of the journal.There are some celebrated names in this unusual and very engaging collection, among them Martin Amis, Francine Prose, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Franzen, Steven Millhauser, Paula Fox, Tobias Wolff and Charles Simic. But there are many more names probably unfamiliar to casual readers. The format is generally uniform: One writer asks questions; another answers; a colloquy ensues-though the focus remains on the work, usually the recent work, of the interviewee. In some cases, there is the delight in hearing from writers before they became household names. Franzen, for example, talked with Donald Antrim in 2001, the year The Corrections appeared-but before the novel took off, before the Oprah kerfuffle-and they discussed Franzen's two earlier novels. Sometimes the writers are loquacious (both Rachel Kushner and Hari Kunzru have plenty to say), but this is occasionally due to the format of the exchange. Some are via email; others, edited versions of live conversations. The media affect the messages. We learn about writers' habits (Kimiko Hahn once wrote a lot in coffee shops; Ben Marcus had to adjust to a new baby in the house; John Edgar Wideman confesses that revision sometimes comes easily). The diction ranges from nearly pretentious to appealingly humble. In the latter category, Justin Taylor and Ben Mirov end their interview with a playful word-association game. But at the center of virtually every exchange are significant discussions of writing and art in general. Lydia Davis learned early from Dick and Jane the rhythms of sentences, and Junot Diaz says, "I don't write with any regularity or joy. I fear that it might take me another 11 years to write another book." Interviews that range from sparklers to Roman candles to skyrockets and beyond.

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January 1, 1992
Conceived at the outset of the 1980s as a cutting-edge arts magazine with a heavy slant toward the downtown Manhattan scene, Bomb is eclectic in its focus, an eclecticism that is reflected in this 10th anniversary collection. Eschewing the participation of journalists in the interview process, Bomb publisher Sussler and her editors conceived of ``interviews between peers, writers and artists, about what it is to make art.'' The result is wildly uneven, as befits the magazine's risk-taking nature. For example, the dialogue between visual artists Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger is a pretentious nullity (particularly disappointing because Kruger's art is so astute and verbal), but the discussion of photography between Duane Michals and David Seidner is scintillating, especially when they touch on the ontology of their chosen medium. The give-and-take between painters Georgia Marsh and David Salle is refreshingly funny, and Kathy Bates and Michael O'Keefe are amusingly candid about the tribulations of film acting. The best moments in the book occur when a subject offers an unforced confession, as in Salman Rushdie's self-definition, ``I suppose I am a lapsed Muslim.'' Illustrations not seen by PW.