12 Questions for Christian Lorentzen

The legendary NYC critic on Nostalgia, AI, Nuclear Families, the Sex Scene, and more.

It was bizarre getting the number of a writer I’ve read for years and years on end, having spent many hours in his company within the margins of those marquee publications like the New York Times, Harper’s, New York Magazine, The London Review of Books, among others. I’ve spoken with famous people before—actors, musicians and such—but engaging in a cold dialogue with a writer whom, as a reader, you’ve built that very intimate one way relationship with, is something else entirely. Their voice is never what you think it’d sound like, their rhythm of speech is usually different than the carefully crafted lyricism of their text, their awkward conversational style inimical to the deeply felt insights and perspectives with which they address their readers. Unless I can meet them in-person and have a long-form, closely acquainted, perhaps private conversation where you can attempt to know and get a sense of someone, I’d like to avoid unnecessary interactions with the writers who’ve influenced me… I write because I read, and I read because I’m sensitive to and fascinated by the perspective of others in contrast to my own disposition, sense of self, of being. This interplay is integral to my identity, and I prefer it to not be fucked with.

A talented musician who ends up quite boring in-person and is bad at performing in front of a crowd is missing something, the whole is mediocre. The same is not true of writers. The public persona is of no significance. This is why, with authors, the written interview is always superior to the conversational, often salacious expose of the heavily edited phone call or coffee chat. I’m not so interested to see a writer caught off guard, this is something that happens to essayists, critics, polemicists, and novelists on a daily basis, usually when they look at their account balance. Writers construct their persona best on the page. The friction between who one wants to be and who one is, the tension between one's actions and ideals, is better suited for literature, a more comprehensive arena, than the short-form interview. In this series, where I ask writers questions that they can then go off on their own and answer in peace, in whichever way they’d like, I’m more interested in the illusion of voice, the one space of a writer’s life they have under control, what exists between them and the page, between them and their edits. What I want to see is the very personal construction of form, the result of years spent toiling and crafting. If that inner-personal tension is revealed, naturally, then that’s all for the better. But to be able to see any of this in the first place, I must ask the writer, in-person or over the phone, if they are willing to engage. 

“Uhhh, I’ll get around to it if I feel like it.” Christian said when I called him.

Fair enough, I thought. This interview is never going to happen. I emailed him my questions, never expecting an answer, went about my business and forgot about it. Though at 5:30 am the next morning, I got a response from him, before receiving two more throughout the day, new versions with some edits to what had previously been answered. Delighted and surprised, I read through his answers, before writing back: 

Christian, I can’t describe the pleasure I had in reading your responses. As you might know choosing to devote your life to literature while trying to survive can be awfully stifling, difficult, causing one to question and by corollary hate oneself for not just, like, having the capacity to have gone and done something within the confines of socio-economic acceptance, and then you have those moments where you read something about something or you participate in a ’thing’ and you laugh very hard for the first time in a long time and simultaneously you become sentimental and feel tinges of happiness and self-worth, and you say “ah, right, that’s why I do this, I’m in just the right place.” So thanks for giving me one of those very rare and valuable moments. I’m very excited to publish this and will send you a copy beforehand. 

And Christian responded: 

Glad you like the interview. I tried to have fun. 

A few hours later, Christian mentioned that he was performing a reading that evening. He was initially going to read something else, but he’d actually like to read from the responses he wrote to the questions I’d asked. Would I like to come? 

I shuffled my plans around for the evening to make it happen. And then on the walk over to the venue, he texted again, “You wanna read your questions out to me?” 

When I arrived I found Christian sitting in a group of admirers, having to look at an image on my phone to identify him. He was upset that I’d found him to introduce myself and would have preferred we met for the first time when he’d call me up to the podium at the beginning of his reading. It would have been a better spectacle, he said, the public witnessing of our meeting in-person following an interview that was simultaneously intimate and anonymous. I’d ruined that, but it still went well, with laughs and some genuine receptiveness from the crowd, reactions which can be scant at a reading, where, in my opinion, people usually show up for the before and after, to take a look at the writer, but then to tune out during the event itself… the experience of watching most writers read aloud is too often like having a joke explained, the idea is present yet without purpose, integrity, or magic. There are writers, though, like David Sedaris, or apparently Charles Dickens in his day, who specialize in the performance of reading. They know (and in Dickens’ case knew) all the beats, which passages the audience will respond to, what sentences would only resonate if someone is reading it on their own. Christian is one of those readers. His voice sped past the bits he was aware no one would have patience for on a drunken Friday evening. It would slow down, with great emphasis, on the turns of phrase he knew would get laughs and jeers. He was a string-puller, an amusing entertainer with an element of intellect. When the reading was over, we both sat back down in our respective sides of the room and watched the rest of the writers perform. Some were good, but it wasn’t show business. 

Afterward, as the crowd mingled and I grew exhausted, Christian and I exchanged a few words, a cigarette. 

“I thought we had a good rapport up there!” He said, jovial. 

“Yes!” I responded, before leaving shortly after. I knew the worst thing I could do in this scenario is overstay my welcome. You don’t want to be that guy most people don’t know, lingering for the sake of connection-making. Social comfortability in a new milieu takes time, a repetition of shared experience that can’t be contrived. If it’s forced, it’s disgusting. And regardless, I’m more interested in reading, probably in my home, on the subway, or at a cafe, whatever it is Christian publishes next. I think that’s where the real connection resides. 

Our interview is below, enjoy.

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GG: What do you think it means, today, in the United States of America, to be a person of the left in a way that’s true, and, sorry to use this word, authentic?

CL: