(4 of 5)
A. Status is an influence at every level. We resist the notion that it matters, but it's true. You can't escape it. You see it in restaurants -- not just in New York. People seem willing to pay any amount to be seen at this week's restaurant of the century. It's all part of what I call plutography: depicting the acts of the rich. They not only want to be seen at this week's restaurant of the century, they want to be embraced by the owner. But status isn't only to do with the rich. Status is fundamental, an inescapable part of human life.
Q. In your books you pay meticulous attention to what people wear, as signals of status.
A. Clothing is a wonderful doorway that most easily leads you to the heart of an individual; it's the way they reveal themselves.
Q. Some critics say you judge a man by the shoes he wears.
A. I take some solace in knowing that Balzac was criticized the same way -- he was obsessed with furniture. Details are of no use unless they lead you to an understanding of the heart. It's no mystery; it has to do with the whole subject of status.
Q. What would you say about a character who wears a handsomely cut vanilla- colored suit on a winter day in New York, with a lilac tie and matching striped shirt with a collar seven stripes high, and shoes custom-designed to appear to have white spats?
A. I was afraid you might mention that. I suppose I might say, "Here's somebody who's trying to call attention to himself." But I leave that to others to interpret. It's always hard to describe yourself.
Q. Does it bother you to be called a "dandy"?
A. Not at all. Writers, whether they want to admit it or not, are in the business of calling attention to themselves. My own taste is counter-bohemian.
My white suits came about by accident. I had a white suit made that was too hot for summer, so I wore it in December. I found that it really irritated people -- I had hit upon this harmless form of aggression!
Q. Is America becoming too homogenized? Is individualism in danger of being lost?
A. No. I think this is a very wild country. Ever since the '60s there has been a moving off dead-center. I see a lack of inhibition. Look at international travelers. I used to think in terms of Adolphe Menjou in his cloak, arriving on a ship, with 42 pieces of luggage. Now the international traveler comes into Kennedy airport in a summer football sweatshirt and running shorts, and his wife is wearing shorts and a T shirt and high heels. And they are flying first-class.
Q. Did you always want to be a writer?
A. I decided at five or six that I wanted to be a writer. My father was an agronomist and the editor of a magazine called Southern Planter, in Richmond. I always thought of him as a writer. And I wanted to write.
Q. When you were a small child, there was another famous Southern writer named Thomas Wolfe. Was that a subliminal influence?
A. I love his books. As a child I couldn't understand, since his name was the same, why we weren't related. He was a maximalist, and that's what I admire. Somebody once told him to take out all that was not necessary. And he said, "No. I'm a putter-inner." And that's what I am, a putter-inner.
Q. Critics compare you with Dickens, Balzac, Zola. Pretty good company.