The Accidental Tourist

Q: In The Accidental Tourist, you write of Macon: “He began to think that who you are when you’re with somebody may matter more than whether you love her.” Ultimately, does Macon love Muriel?

AT: I think he really does.

Q: Macon remembers finding a magazine quiz in which Sarah answered that she loved her spouse more than he loved her. How accuratewas her answer? Was Sarah correct in writing that she loved Macon more than he loved her?

AT: Her answer reflected her limited understanding of Macon, I believe, more than the true situation.

Q: Is Macon being honest when he tells Sarah that Muriel’s young son did not draw him to Muriel?

AT: I did mean that to be his honest answer. If anything, her son was a negative quality — at least in the beginning.

Q: This novel explores the vexed nature of romantic relationships. Do the couples that have formed over the course of this novel stand a chance?

AT: Yes, of course they do. These are flawed relationships — as all are — and they require compromise — as all do. But at least one member of each couple has found a way to make those compromises.

Q: The Learys are at once remarkable comic figures and deeply human characters. How difficult is it to achieve this delicate balance and neitherveer into parody nor a humorless character study?

AT: In early drafts, when I didn’t know the Learys all that well, I did veer over one or the other edge from time to time. But the most rewarding experience in writing a novel is the gradually deepening understanding of its characters; and once I knew the Learys better, the balance came naturally.

Q: Is the Leary siblings’ geographic dyslexia treatable?

AT: Speaking from personal experience, I would say absolutely not. It’s biological.

Q: Will Rose and Julian’s relationship survive the transplant to the Leary homestead?

AT: Yes, Julian will become a funny sort of quasi-Leary, purely out of love for Rose, and a helpful liaison to the outside world.

Q: Is there any hope for Porter or Charles?

AT: Well, not much hope they’ll truly change, of course. But they seem contented as they are.

Q: Do you have the narrative fairly well mapped out before you begin writing a novel, or do you find yourself taking detours? For instance, did you know all along how this novel would end?

AT: I map my books out in a very cursory way — say, about a page for each novel — and I always think I know how they’ll end, but I’m almost always wrong. In the case of The Accidental Tourist, I actually began a chapter in which Macon stayed with Sarah. But it didn’t work; something in the characters themselves persuaded me the ending would have to be different.

Q: Do your characters ever surprise you?

AT: All the time.

Q: What do you most enjoy about your life as writer? And least?

AT: The best part about being a writer is the experience of learning, gradually, what it is like to be a person completely different from me. The hard part is that for years on end, I am working in a vacuum. Is this a story anyone will believe? Anyone will care about? I won’t know that until I’m finished.

Q: If you could invite any writer, living or dead, to attend a reading group meeting to discuss their work, who would it be? What would you most like to learn from her or him?

A: I would rather read the writer, not hear him or her talk. I know that from being a writer myself: what I have to say, I have already said through my stories.

Q: What are you reading right now?