kate atkinson

i noticed i couldn't even spell my own name in one of those postings. Thank goodness i'm not a writer.

These are Edward's question: Given the fact that you unexpectedly beat out Salman Rushdie for the Booker, is there a certain level of expectation you find from either yourself or your readers when you write a book? Do you feel as if you are drawn to genre hybrids (such as "Case Histories") as a blatant defiance of what constitutes "literary fiction"? Or do such labels even matter?

I have no expectations only hope that i can finish.  As to readers, i honestly don't know.  i suppose they're looking for a voice they recognise.

I also wanted to comment upon how often you strive to entertain with your work. Are you entertaining yourself or the audience? Why do you think there are so many quirks within your work?

Entertaining me, absolutely, that's why i never know what's going to happen when i write.  i don't think of my writing as quirky (remember Wonderland is my alma mater) - i'm not entirely sure what the opposite of quirky is.  i guess quirky is the same as gimmicky, quirky i can just about accept but gimmicky is in the eye of the beholder.  Fiction, as i said before is whatever you want it to be.  My doctoral thesis was on Bartheleme, Coover, Katz, Sukenick etc.  Those are the writers who opened up the possibilities of fiction for me and i think that the exploration of those possibilities is something that should be reinvented again and again in the text.  There's a long tradition in America of fictive fiction a lot of which was probably considered quirky at the time.  Or even gimmicky.

Well that's all folks, it's bedtime here but if there's any more stuff comes in I'll happily respond to it tomorrow.  It's been fun.  Thank you.

Katex

Further, there are some unusual plotting structures within your novels (the lengthy object-oriented footnotes of "Behind the Scenes" and the titular "case histories"). To what extent would you consider these essential to your work? In the Minority Report here at the LBC and in a few dissenting reviews I read, your work was accused of being "gimmicky." Do you see yourself straying from these devices with future novels?

Comments

[Randa J]

Thank you, Katex.

You're one of my favorite living writers.