(3 of 5)
A. Philip Roth said that we live in an age in which the imagination of the novelist is helpless before what he knows he will read in tomorrow's newspaper. And it's true! No one can dream up the things that pop up in the papers every day.
At one point I was a little worried about having my main character, Sherman McCoy, losing $6 million for his firm in about 15 minutes. I thought, "Well, this is fiction. I'll go ahead and do it." My typewriter had hardly stopped moving before I picked up the New York Times, and there on Page One was an account of a young investment banker, about the same age as my character, 38, who lost $250 million for his firm in a week. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, running as hard as I can to stay in the same place.
Q. Bonfire has received great critical acclaim, but critics have also called it cynical, racist, elitist.
A. That's nonsense. I throw the challenge to them: if you think it is false, go out and do what I did. Go beyond the cocoon of your apartment and taxicab and take a look. Take notes. Then let's compare notes. I'll bet your picture of New York is not very different from mine.
What they are really saying is that I have violated a certain etiquette in literary circles that says you shouldn't be altogether frank about these matters of ethnic and racial hostility. But if you raise the issue, a certain formula is to be followed: you must introduce a character, preferably from the streets, who is enlightened and shows everyone the error of his ways, so that by the time the story is over, everyone's heading off wiser. There has to be a moral resolution. Unfortunately, life isn't like that. I felt that if you are going to try to write a novel about New York, you cannot play falsely with the issue of ethnic and racial hostility. You can't invent implausible morality tales and make it all go away in some fictitious fashion.
Q. How did you tackle the task to get the texture, the sound of every layer of New York?
A. I'm a journalist at heart; even as a novelist, I'm first of all a journalist. I think all novels should be journalism to start, and if you can ascend from that plateau to some marvelous altitude, terrific. I really don't think it's possible to understand the individual without understanding the society.
Q. Bonfire portrays New York at its worst, a city consumed by greed and corruption.
A. I never thought of it as a bleak picture. My feeling was wonderment -- this amazing carnival was spread out before me. I really love New York. It attracts ambitious people, not just at the top. Think of all the Asians who have come here and have the newspaper stands and candy stores and grocery shops. New York is the city of ambition.
Q. Americans seem obsessed by the quest for status, and certainly the characters in Bonfire are, which suggests that you are.