J Lethem

[Paul Mackin]

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From: 	davemarc[SMTP:davemarc at panix.com]
The Spring 1997 Voice Literary Supplement includes a profile of Jonathan
Lethem by Richard B. Woodward.  Here's Lethem on studying fine arts at
Bennington alongside Bret Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt, and Jill Eisenstadt:

"I stayed apart from the writing scene.  What people at Bennington thought
was contemporary didn't seem nearly as interesting as inhabiting the
10-year time lag I was in.  I wrote covertly as a teenager in the '70s
while I was reading Pynchon, Mailer, Brautigan, Henry Miller, Barthelme,
Donleavy, Durrell, Vonnegut.  When I learned that I was supposed to be
excited by Raymond Carver I wasn't thrilled."

Would like to hear more from Donna Tartt, however, though the characters in Secret Histories were just about equally insufferable with the exception of the senile psychology professor. Classic Greek studies is fun but hope she will write about grownups the next time out. But hey that was the eighties and this is the nineties. The seventies were great for sex for those old enough to remember.

				P.