John Irving Interview

Good interview here at Powells.com. Check it out.

This book I've just completed... it's three-hundred twenty thousand words. To give you some perspective, A Son of the Circus, my longest book until now, was two hundred fifty-eight thousand words. This is a long book. This is eight hundred twenty-six book-pages.

Why do you keep reading it? Because you are emotionally engaged. Because you care about what happens to the people. That idea is not an intellectual one. That idea goes back to the nineteenth century novel and says, The reason we are entertained, the reason we want to keep going, is that we have an investment in these people.