An Interview with Benjamin Taylor

Costa Pappas

Since the release of his first novel in 1995, Benjamin Taylor’s career has spanned across books, essays, philanthropy, and his teachings. When I first moved to New York, I met Taylor in my old building. As a young aspiring writer, I was intrigued by Taylor’s career, and a friendship soon after began. What resonated with me beyond his literary accomplishments — the recipient of the Los Angeles Times/Christopher Isherwood Prize, the Editors’ choice for The New Yorker and The New York Times, a former fellow and current trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation — was Taylor’s love of the craft that he shares through his university teachings. Taylor and I spoke to discuss inspiration, socio-political influences on literature, and the ethics of biography writing.

NORTHWEST REVIEW: What was your initial inspiration to become a biographer?
BENJAMIN TAYLOR: In graduate school I took against the prevailing academic distaste for biography. I remember reading Richard Sewell on Emily Dickinson and John Unterecker on Hart Crane, and thinking “This is for me.” Ideologically driven criticism seemed so bloodless by comparison.
NWR: What inspired you to pursue a doctorate in comparative literature?
BT: I thought of myself as a critical mind, and thought a niche in academic life would suit me. But the wish to write a novel was very strong and I followed my bent.
NWR: And you continue to write more books to this day. How has the publishing industry changed since your first publication in 1995?
BT: Much more consolidated. Much more competitive for would-be writers. I liked it better when it was an old-style gentleman’s industry.
NWR: What is one message that you want all aspiring writers to know?
BT: That, as Saul Bellow said, writers are readers moved to emulation.
NWR: What is it about New York, in your opinion, that has consistently drawn in a wave of young artists?
BT: This is truly a world city, perhaps uniquely cosmopolitan. Bright young people figure out that the action and opportunities are here.
NWR: Reflecting on your own adolescent years, did you always have a passion for understanding the stories of others? If so, is there a moment or person you can pinpoint?
BT: I think other people’s secrets have always been my chief interest. As it happens I’m currently teaching a course at Columbia called Other People’s Secrets.
NWR: What does your course, Other People’s Secrets, entail?
BT: We look at a variety of novels and memoirs. The issue is inner life and how works of literary art reveal it. Evan Connell’s “Mrs. Bridge” and “Mr. Bridge” are a couple of the wonderful books we’ve been reading.
NWR: What are some of your favorite books from this past year?
BT: Brigitta Olubas’s biography of Shirley Hazzard is wondrously good. Out from FSG this month.
NWR: As a professor, philanthropist, and writer you must have a lot on your plate. Could you tell us about your writing and research process leading up to writing a biography?
BT: It begins with complete knowledge of the subject’s written works, branches out from there to things written about the subject, and so forth. Eventually, and with a little luck, a portrait begins to take shape. You’re in a position to make inferences and see patterns hitherto invisible. That’s the fun part.
NWR: How do you choose the figures you write about?
BT: Well both my subjects, Proust and Cather, are surpassingly great writers. That’s the sort of figures I’m interested in. I leave it to others to do Al Capone or Roy Cohn.
NWR: After you finish a biography, how long does the story and its characters linger in your mind? Has there been a specific project that was difficult for you to write?
BT: I’m no longer much of an authority on any of my previous books, of whatever genre. Once I’m done with a subject I let it go. Too busy working up the next project. The hardest of my books was my doctoral dissertation, “Into the Open.” Took years — because I had so little self-confidence.
NWR: How did you find your self-confidence as a writer?
BT: Ah, Costa, my self-confidence is variable. Some days I have none at all.
NWR: How do you think your background has shaped your ability to cultivate such authentic portrayals and analysis of other people’s experiences?
BT: I attribute all my aptitudes to my mother, a great and gentle taskmaster who told me I could do anything I put my mind to.
NWR: In your memoir, “Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth,” you write an ode to your close friendship with the well-known novelist. As you explore the depths of your friendship and ultimately the complexities to his character, you showcase a truly human side of him — good and the bad. How do you navigate the ethics of writing about someone else?
BT: Philip and I had an understanding that I would write a memoir about him; we had a further understanding that I would not publish it while he was alive. In “The Hue and Cry at Our House” I was obliged by Penguin’s lawyers, and my own scruples, to change a few names. I do know I would not have felt able to publish “The Hue and Cry at Our House” while either of my parents was alive, and my portrait of them is anything but scandalous. One does want to be careful of people’s feelings. One also wants to get one’s books into the world.
NWR: Do you believe the ethics of writing biographies and memoirs is clear-cut, or is it up to each writer to come to terms with what ethical writing means to them?
BT: I think I’ll let the previous answer do for this.
NWR: Reflecting on past eras, we have seen how wars, political divide, and economic struggles shape contemporary movements in literature. Do you have any predictions for how the Covid-19 pandemic will impact modern contemporary stories?
BT: After the Great Spanish Flu of 1918–19, some remarkable things got written: Katherine Anne Porter, Mary McCarthy, and William Maxwell come to mind. Covid will surely produce gems comparable to “Pale Hours, Pale Rider,” “Memories of a Catholic Girlhood,” and “So Long, See You Tomorrow.” We just don’t yet know what they are.
NWR: And what is the next project we can expect from you?
BT: Looks like what’s in the computer is shaping up to be a novel.