I love Philip Roth and David Foster Wallace. I'm really uncomfortable with the comparison. They're two of my literary heroes. It's exciting, but it makes me nervous. I've been told this thing I most want to believe, and then what if someone tells me it's not true?
Why should people in this very Catholic city come out to hear you read?
Well, there's that St. Louis-Chicago rivalry. They should come to check out the enemy. I did not write this book for a Jewish audience. I wrote it for an American audience. My first reader was raised by Episcopalian pastors. He read the first 30 pages and was totally with it. I thought, well, pastors, he knows the Old Testament, there's some Jewiness to him. But when I got more feedback from people who weren't Jewish, they said they could relate, even though they didn't know what certain Yiddish words meant. The Messiah people are claiming Gurion is is the same Messiah Christians are claiming Jesus was.
Is your next book going to be 1000 pages?
I will never write another 1000-page book. I have a short story collection coming out next year. [It's called Hot Pink.] Now I think I have to write the shortest possible novel. I also need to get a full-time job teaching. I'm officially on the job market. I'll go wherever they want to give me insurance and a livable wage.
McSweeney's has put out The Instructions with three different color covers. What's your favorite?
My favorite fluctuates rapidly. Whatever the last person told me theirs was. Originally they sent me the red and the blue one. I didn't see the gray one for about three weeks, so that became like the Holy Grail. It's fun to think about this every day. It's a cool problem to have. Right now, I'd have to say gray. But they have two more colors coming out.
