In the second half of my conversation with Karen Joy Fowler, we shift seamlessly (sort of) from Star Wars to ponder:
----more----
- self, other, difference and childhood,
- whether an interesting childhood a good thing,
- parentting as experiment,
- responses to the novel, including a letter from a woman whose family participated in the actual experiments,
- communication in the animal world,
- the Brown Dog Riots in Battersea,
- non-violence and American activism,
- Fowler's ideas about writing,
- inspiration and uncontrollable characters,
- reviews, bleakness and comedy,
- literature empathy and September 11th,
- risk, happiness, success and how to be a hit novelist (not),
- the challenge of following We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,
- and, how Obamacare can help American novelists.
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves was my novel of 2014, and was also nominated by Katy Guest, literary editor at the Sunday Independent.