Following his Appreciation of John Hawkes, which we ran here on The Rumpus, dislocate interviews novelist and short story writer Jim Shepard about the piece, as well as the universal shame of realizing which classics you’ve never read, the pros and cons of or being a completist, and how Electric Literature is keeping short stories relevant.
Shepard also shares his thoughts on the weird, and how he teaches his students to employ it, following the advice of his own teacher and mentor, John Hawkes:
“Quirky without pain? Then you’re just performing. All of first-person narration, all of literature, really, is a kind of performance. This person is trying to get you to love them. Humbert Humbert is performing for you. But Lolita works because you realize Humbert Humbert is in some serious pain. And that tension–I’m going to deny my pain and charm you, and at the same time, by the way, I am the most miserable fucking person you’ve ever come across–that’s a hugely compelling tension.”
