Into the Unbounded Night by Mitchell James Kaplan

There are exceptions, of course, and I know some fine people who are willing to change and sacrifice to measure up to our present moment. All her siblings and relatives resist this thought, including the would-be novelist brother Anton.ĭG: Yes, it’s a pretty bleak view. She alone wants to honor the promise her mother made to give the Black maid the ownership of the very humble house she lives in. In your new novel, I took huge pleasure in observations such as, “Like everything in life except a Robert Wilson play, the dance went by too fast to be understood.” Or the way a raincoat salesman says the garment is rain resistant “as if that was an unusual feature in a raincoat.” I recognize these little flourishes from your own conversational style.ĮW: In The Promise only Amor seems conscious of the inequities of South African life. So is your deftness with the deadpan throwaway line. The constant shift in tone is part of the charm you mention. It’s maybe a small point, but I have always been delighted by how you often undercut the main thrust of your sentence with an oblique aside in parentheses, almost like an editor commenting from offstage.

And I have learned some tricks from you in that regard. Your style is always involving, never ostentatious but never predictable.ĭG: Why, thank you! I do think that the writer should work to keep the reader’s attention it’s part of the job requirement.

I have always tried to destabilize the reader, surprising him but not altogether arbitrarily.Īnatole France thought the most lively style stayed close to the conversational but refreshed it with small inventions.

Into the Unbounded Night by Mitchell James Kaplan