Description

This tape is labeled, “Max Apple—In Class.” McCaffery instructs his class to not be intimidated and take the chance to “ask a real live writer.” None of the questioners is identified. To one question, Apple replies, “I was thinking of that day in the future in which you would ask me that question. I can’t answer.” He talks about rhetoric and technology, and how he likes to “visualize” or “personalize” things. Apple addresses the differences between comedy and tragedy. “You’re entering my fabric of words” when reading his stories. When asked whose work he reads, he says he’s “too tired to answer that question” and asks the class what they have read. He taught a course on “great books” and suggested a course in “famous cocktail party conversations,“ because what people want from a course on “great books” is something to say. He is the narrator of his story, “Inside Norman Mailer,” which he says is “full of classical allusions.” He reads an excerpt from it. “A good reader” can analyze text, but a writer might have done things unconsciously and cannot talk about what he did not know he did. with American Authors of the 1980s. At about 45 minutes the tape is turned over. Some of the questions cannot be heard. Inspiration is different with each story. A novel, Apple says, is emotionally easier than short stories, because one gets “wedded” to characters. He says the fall of Richard Nixon reminded him of Aeschylus the playwright and Greek tragedy and that stories with classic elements appeal to people of all social classes. McCaffery ends by talking about assignments for the class., and Apple’s voice is in the background before the recorder is shut off. This session may have been edited for Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s.