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Genre bender (continued)


Q: How do you come up with your story ideas? Are they generally all yours, or do editors make suggestions?

A: I would say 99.9 percent of them are mine, and that’s not because I think I’m the best person in the world to come up with story ideas, but I really need to fall in love with an idea. It happens that someone will, on occasion, suggest something to me that clicks, but it’s hard. The New Yorker, as a rule, the editors are not charged with the responsibility of coming up with stories, unlike a lot of other magazines. They’re happy if editors generate ideas, but it’s not a primary responsibility the way it is at most other places. It really is the writers’ responsibility. I also think my taste is so eccentric that people think they’ve come up with a "Susan Orlean idea," and it’s a little bit like somebody buying you an article of clothing, and you think, oh, I see why you think that was me, but it’s really wrong. In fact, I remember years ago, a friend of mine said to me, "Oh, I have a shirt that is so you, I cannot believe it. I’m so excited, you’ve just got to come so I can give it to you." I thought, well, that’s interesting, because I have fairly eclectic taste in clothing, somewhat unusual, and I thought, that’s cool. I mean, she was absolutely dead-certain that she had found something that I would simply die because I was so excited. And it was a purple satin cowboy shirt. So it was one standard deviation to the left of any taste that I might have. In other words, it was repulsive.

Q: Are you tired of talking about The Orchid Thief?

A: No, not really. I got tired of talking about it in a certain way when the movie came out. Our obsession with Hollywood is so profound that people just want to talk about the movie. I love the movie, so it’s not that I resent it, but I got asked the same questions so much that it got to be sort of boring for me.

Q: Do you worry that it’s how people define you?

A: No, because I’m really proud of the book, and I feel like the only way it’s worrisome is that you set a standard for yourself that can be a little intimidating. And you know that people will compare your subsequent work to that, because it becomes so fixed in their minds. But I feel really lucky that it’s a book that I feel very proud of. I think no matter what, if you achieve a certain degree of notoriety, people will fix on something you’ve done. I think it would be uncomfortable if it was something you felt was not your best work, or somehow not representative of what you do. The fact is, that book, in many ways, really is very consistent with how I see myself as a writer, so it’s not off-kilter. That, I think, would be tough. I remember when I was trying to get my first book contract, and I had this idea of doing a book about three triathletes training. And my agent said to me, "It’s a perfectly good book idea, but is that how you want to be thought of? For someone else that might be fine, but somehow that just doesn’t seem quite you." And it was a really good point, because it would’ve been a perfectly good book, but if it had become the definition of what I am or what I’m interested in, it would’ve been a little off. And that’s not true with The Orchid Thief.

Q: Were you comfortable with the whole Hollywood thing?

A: Oh, I had fun. It was really fun. I was very lucky; the people involved in that movie were exceptional. You know, Hollywood’s got great highs and great lows, and the people who worked on that movie from the top down to the bottom were about as good as you can get in that universe. I used to say to people, these are people who, in a different era, would’ve all been in the book business, meaning that they just had a different kind of sensibility, and they were wonderful. And my relationship to the process was really ideal; I was kind of treated as an honored guest. I didn’t have any obligations, but I was encouraged to do and have as much fun with it as I could.

There are elements of it that are weird. There’s stuff that I wasn’t prepared for. I mean, at the premiere of the movie, having a wall of photographers — that stuff was kind of shocking, because it’s not really part of the print journalist’s lifestyle. It’s a little off-putting. And having paparazzi pictures of yourself being swapped around and showing up in places without your permission, it’s very weird. But nothing unpleasant came of it. I’m a little bit more self-conscious about my private life than I would’ve ever been before, just because once you have any affiliation with Hollywood — even though I’m such a tiny footnote in that world — it just makes you fodder for a different kind of attention.

Q: Your name is certainly going to come up a lot more in Google searches.

A: Exactly. And so you are aware of that, and you can’t ever get that back. I won’t characterize it as unpleasant, but it’s just something I wasn’t quite prepared for. But otherwise, as far as the real movie stuff, and being involved with those people and watching the movie unfold, it was great. It was really fun. I could only compare it to some amazing Disney World ride. And because I really am happy with the movie and feel like they created something pretty wonderful, that’s a great part of it too.

Q: Do you look at Meryl Streep at all differently now?

A: Well, we’ve become friends, so yeah, I do! It’s unavoidable, because to me now she’s an actual person. I’ve sort of joked around with a couple people I know who she’s portrayed in movies [that we’re] a kind of funny society of people Meryl has played in films. She’s a wonderful person, and that was one of the terrific outcomes of this, making some real friends with people who are really great, who I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

Q: Can you envision any of your other pieces being turned into movies? Is that something you’d welcome?

A: Sure, I would absolutely welcome that. I think there are quite a few that have that potential. I don’t get involved in promoting that. My agents do that. I’ve found it to be a happy experience, and part of it is because I really don’t go into it with expectations. If somebody options work of mine and they’re people who I feel are not idiots, I feel like, well, let them go and do something good with it. I actually find it easy to release it into their custody. I think where people get unhappy is that they feel they still want control over it, and that’s not the way it works. Again, to use a clothing analogy here, it’s a little like loaning someone a sweater, and they wear it with something you think is really ugly. When you get it back, it’s still your sweater. So that’s the way I look at it. If someone makes a bad movie from something I’ve written, it’s too bad, but the piece I wrote is still the piece I wrote. I would prefer that they make a good movie, but I don’t mix up the two things. I see them as quite independent, actually.

 

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Issue Date: October 1 - 7, 2004
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