Interviewer: you’ve written satirical novels–George Bush, Dark Prince of Love, say, and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart — as well as quite serious ones, like My Happy Life and How the Dead Dream; The San Francisco Chronicle has noted that your two characteristic styles are “the harrowing and the madcap.” How do you decide on your stylistic approach to a give project”
Lydia Millet: Madcap, Jesus. That may be as bad a zany. Or even descend to the level of wacky. Book notions decide their own tone and style, you know? From the first line, the first page, they’re a certain animal. It’s not a calculation as such. It’s more like what toddlers do with those shape toys: they see a hole and pick up the right shape to fill it.
-Interviewed in The Writer’s Chronicle, Summer 2018
Matthew Frye-Castillo 