Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers

The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors with new books. This month we talk to:

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Cebo Campbell (Sky Full of Elephants)

Matthew Davis (Let Me Try Again)

Carolyn Jack (The Changing of Keys)

Nora Lange (Us Fools)

Devika Rege (Quarterlife)

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Without summarizing it in any way, what would you say your book is about?

Carolyn Jack: Troubled men. Highly intelligent, even brilliant, troubled men who create or perpetuate troubled families, starting with my father, whose baffling inability – or terrified refusal? – to deal with his insecurity and injured self-esteem and fear of putting his trust in women created a special kind of hell for those of us who loved him. I’ve been trying to figure out the whys of this all my life and finally embarked on this book to try to answer my own questions.

Devika Rege: Identity. Enchantment. Desire. The psychological roots of political beliefs. The innumerable little widgets that bring about wide-scale social change.

Matthew Davis: Book is about how you can’t change yourself, or change others. You can try, but it never really does anything. Also how the world is sillier than ever, and being Catholic is the most Jewish thing you can do in life.

Nora Lange: What happens when you grow up consuming, and being consumed by, America?

Cebo Campbell: Make America Melanated. Fresh Prince of Anywhere. Final barbeque invitations. One Digable Planet (cool like dat). “A Different World” (shout out to Dwayne Wayne). Wakanda, USA. Black Twitter, formerly known as X, formerly known as Twitter. Your country club is a vibe now. So is your airport. We outside.

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Without explaining why and without naming other authors or books, can you discuss the various influences on your book?

Cebo Campbell: Daytona Beach Spring Break in the ‘90s and Obama’s handshake in that “Key and Peele” sketch.

Nora Lange: Television. Love, which is to say “struggle.” Ecological crisis. Disasters writ large. Weather, like water forming storm clouds. Myths, which often map our bodies and our landscape. Mostly failed governmental policies (past and present). Heretics, which is to say mostly women (past and present). Sound (hearing life–stump speeches, combine harvesters, side conversations, thunder).  

Devika Rege: Listening to strangers. Watching crowds. Reading poetry. Reading philosophy. Nasreen Mohamedi and Zarina Hashmi’s paintings. Gauri Gill’s photography.

Carolyn Jack: I love all kinds of books and stories, but am particularly drawn to those that try to figure out why the character(s) are the way they are. There are two authors in particular (not telling!) that affirmed my own instincts in that line – one in terms of focusing on a character’s development from youth to adulthood and the other in telling a modern-times story in the kind of rich, poetic language I longed to write but had had jeered and frowned out of me for years by journalism and certain literary schools of style. Reading those books made me feel (I imagine) like John Lennon seeing the word “yes” on the ceiling of Yoko Ono’s art installation.

Matthew Davis: TV shows from the 2000s and early 2010s, postmodern voice driven comic novels from the 80s, professional wrestling, semipseudoscientific nutrition and health advice.

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Without using complete sentences, can you describe what was going on in your life as you wrote this book?

Matthew Davis: Locked away in Long Island City, Queens, entire world locked down, intense loneliness, dabbling in religious extremism, peaceful protests on the street every night, missing ex-girlfriend, seeing ex-girlfriend couple times a month, working remotely at a prestigious hedge fund, missing parents, eating a lot of vegetables, going for walks.

Nora Lange: Moved a lot, apartments, in-law units, etc. Both abroad and in America. Absentia-living.

Devika Rege: Elections. Protests. Curfews. Unsent letters. Deaths in the family. Five friends who carried me and whom I carried through the long hours with whiskey, dark humor, and tenderness.

Carolyn Jack: Over 15 freaking years?! Well, so – like, everything. Major-daily arts coverage choral rehearsals spit-up Barney cooking cleaning Midwesterners shows interviews revolving-door babysitters concert tours typing editing typing editing kid sports teen moods management issues weeds deer business startup college trips dead furnaces deadlines deadlines deadlines. Fun. Love. Sleep deprivation.

Cebo Campbell: Brooklyn. Dead of winter. Overspending on Uber Eats to deliver two pizza slices on a paper plate. Watching and rewatching Love Jones. Reading and rereading Beloved. Spinning and respinning Nina Simone Sings The Blues on vinyl. At some point, somehow, deciding to have another baby.

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What are some words you despise that have been used to describe your writing by readers and/or reviewers?

Nora Lange: I’ve not been fortunate enough to have many people talk about my writing. I think someone called it “sentimental.” In those moments, I think about Anni Albers weaving textiles with her hands and David Foster Wallace who critiqued that negative view of sentimentalism. He said those who claimed such things were afraid to feel. I am afraid, but I don’t want to turn my back on that.

Cebo Campbell: None. It’s all love. But I do see you, Kirkus. I see you.

Matthew Davis: “Humor” – feels insulting to describe the book as falling into this genre. This is a serious literary and philosophical work about human pain; it just happens to be funny. I hate when people compare it to Philip Roth, also. I wish they would compare it to Kafka instead.

Carolyn Jack: It’s my debut novel, so I don’t have a lot of experience yet with negative readers or reviewers of literature, though I’m sure I’ll eventually get my share. I assure you I heard some choice terms applied to me as a journalist. In regard to fiction, the word I hope no one ever wants to use to label (or libel) mine is “clichéd.” I try really hard to make every sentence fresh and different and unexpected.

Devika Rege: Despise is a strong word. People read as they will. I’m training myself not to flinch and to accept that the book is no longer mine alone.

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If you could choose a career besides writing (irrespective of schooling requirements and/or talent) what would it be?

Matthew Davis: I guess doing stuff on the computer. That’s my real job currently—software engineer. And it’s been good to me.

Carolyn Jack: Music or dance or both. I’ve dabbled in them a lot, but next time around, I really want to do them professionally. I’ve been a choral singer nearly all my life and I was in a rock band very briefly and there’s just nothing like that feeling of performing with a tight-knit group of skilled people.

Nora Lange: Dancer alongside Yvonne Rainer; marine biologist; librarian (and never retire); nephologist (ditto, and not to be confused with nephrology!).

Devika Rege: A social worker by day and a painter by night.

Cebo Campbell: A special trade, like plumbing, electrician, or a welder. My grandfather used to stucco buildings. He ended everyday spent and woke up each morning ready to get to it. I like that. If I could, I would learn all the trades I need to build my own house from the ground up.

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What craft elements do you think are your strong suit, and what would you like to be better at?

Cebo Campbell: Descriptions, for me, are a gift and a curse. Without my magnificent editor, I would describe things until they became real before your eyes.

Nora Lange: Exploring and divulging the complexities of “character.” I stumble big time when it comes to “description.” I need to describe a lot more, among other things, like having a propulsive plot such as solving an unsolvable murder.

Devika Rege: I’m not great at pacing or suspense but these don’t interest me much either. I’d rather build on what I love, like working an idea through a long narrative arc or fixing an image in prose. I’d also like to put more thought into novelistic time.

Carolyn Jack: I think dialogue is one of my strengths. Maybe it’s because of all the theater I covered as a critic, or because I’ve lived in a bunch of different places, but I feel comfortable and natural writing in the different styles, rhythms and expressions of my characters’ speech. I also feel confident about describing – I like to find unusual metaphors to help readers understand how things look and behave. Except for describing what people are doing while they’re talking. Scratching their noses? Pulling up their socks? Hell if I know – and I feel awkward at making that up.

Matthew Davis: I think I’m pretty good at writing dialogue and writing stories narrated by characters whose voices are different from my natural writing voice. Pacing and comedy in prose fiction as well, some reviews are commenting on how funny my book is so it’s not too crazy for me to say my book is funny.

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How do you contend with the hubris of thinking anyone has or should have any interest in what you have to say about anything?

Carolyn Jack: I admit I never think about that, certainly not while I’m writing. I write because there’s something I want to say and I guess I tend to assume that if I say it well enough, some other people will want to read it. I think people are interested in reading pretty much anything about human issues and our world (even if the story is off-world) as long as the writing is good.

Matthew Davis: I was quite young (22-23) when I wrote this novel. There’s a very natural hubris at that age. Now that I’m a few years older I have a lot of shame about my writing and feel much more self conscious about whether people care about what I have to say. Based on the reception to this book, it seems like some people might, though.

Devika Rege: The desire to be generative isn’t unique to writers. For those who spend years at it, I suspect it feels as natural as the urge to have children or build a company might to someone else. There is no guarantee that the world will find the outcome of these labors interesting. Of course, we all have moments of hubris and doubt along the way, but these are just ripples on a much deeper current: our primordial and irrepressible urge to create.

Nora Lange: We all have something to say. (I’m deflecting!) For me, this question has me thinking more about whether to listen. To that I’d say that if you did decide to spend time with the novel, and to listen to it, I’m here with you. To me, it’s not one-sided. It’s a collaboration. I recognize this might clash with the notion of the “solo independent writer,” but I’m in this to reach out.

Cebo Campbell: There are stories in me that must come out. Whether anyone read anything I wrote or not, wouldn’t change that fact. I am trying to live in my humility as much as I am able. But I do like it when someone catches the easter eggs and details that I put into the work. When they do, it’s like we are existing on the same frequency. Something about that makes the experience of writing less lonely.