The Novelist Sounds Off

On "important" fiction. People ask me, "When are you going to write something serious?" A question like that always hurts. They don't understand it's like walking up to somebody and saying how does it feel to be a nigger? My answer is that I'm as serious as I can be every time I sit down at a typewriter.

On childhood. People of my generation, 25 to 40, we were obsessive about our own childhoods for a long time. We went on playing for a long time, almost feverishly. I write for that buried child in us, but I'm writing for the grown-up too. I want grown-ups to look at the child long enough to be able to give him up. The child should be buried.

On exorcism. There is a part of us that needs to vicariously exorcise the darker side of our feelings. You can hold all this stuff inside and then do something like Charles Whitman at the Texas tower.

On writing. A matter of exercise. If you work out with weights for 15 minutes a day over a course of ten years, you're gonna get muscles. If you write for an hour and a half a day for ten years, you're gonna turn into a good writer.

On horror. I saw The Amityville Horror on Times Square, and there wasn't anybody talking back at the screen. There was total silence, which is unusual for 42nd Street. It was awe. The silence you'd hear in a medieval church, I thought. That's what horror is -- the church of 42nd Street.

On psychoanalysis. In a way I'm in therapy every day. People pay $135 an hour to sit on a couch. I'm talking about the same fears and inadequacies in my writing.

On success. I've grown fat and rich by discovering the vast Bowl-a-Drome of the American psyche. But I still don't have the guts to buy a pair of lizard- skin boots, although I'd like some. It's just too much money to pay. Part of me would like to buy a really nice guitar too, but I know I don't really play well enough. I keep the price tag on my guitar to remind me. It cost $129.

On the competition. I get upset about being compared with certain brand-name writers who sell megabillions of copies. Michener is one. I can't read him. Ludlum is another one. I was paid to review one of his books. He's the clumsiest, most awful writer. No style.

On his own novels. The literary equivalent of a Big Mac and a large fries from McDonald's.