Collection Description

Larry McCaffery is an SDSU professor emeritus of English. In addition to teaching, McCaffery built a reputation as an important postmodern and contemporary American literary critic known for identifying influential and innovative writers. Over the course of thirty years, he and his wife, Sinda Gregory (a scholar in her own right), conducted numerous interviews with notable postmodern and contemporary American writers. In total there are 71 interviewees, including Mark Danielewski, Samuel Delany, Raymond Carver, Joanna Russ, Ursula LeGuin, Raymond Federman, and William Gibson.

McCaffery's unique interview process started with a recorded interview on tape. He then made a loose transcription of the recorded conversation, making changes and rearranging sections as he went. Both McCaffery and the interviewee heavily edited this transcript, which eventually resulted in the creation of a final, collaborative manuscript. Some original audio recordings are reproduced here, while others are only available in our offline archives. This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

McCaffery’s interviews were published in several books: Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists (1983); Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s (1986); Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Authors (1990); and Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors (1995).

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Interview with Marianne Hauser
Gregory explains that they found little information about Hauser, so McCaffery asks Hauser about her background. She wanted to be a dancer or a missionary, both of which involved travel. She lied about her age in order to work in the press. McCaffery and Hauser discuss the differences in style between her first book in English and her later work. She includes in her life story how a telephone call interrupted her suicide planning. She saw Otto Rank, the psychoanalyst, who said if she wanted to write she should not be analyzed. The three discuss her experience of and attitude toward dreams and her use of them in her writing. They discuss her book The Talking Room. On the 2nd side Hauser talks about writing while drunk. Gregory discusses teaching Hauser’s work, and they look at the structure of her books. Hauser talks about writing a puppet play and her book Prince Ishmael. Hauser discusses her work in progress and her writing career. She was never an expatriate: “I have no country.” Gregory opens the next side with a discussion of the use of poppy images, leading to a discussion of Hauser’s exposure to war, and being an outsider to U.S. culture. They discuss her short story “Heartlands Beat.” They talk about how much she knows about a work when she begins it, and her work habits. They discuss some of her actions, such as burning her first draft of Dark Dominion, and refusing an offer to translate her shadow play Indisches Gaukelspiel. They discuss her professional/mental growth in the past 20 years and her book The Memoirs of the Late Mr. Ashley. McCaffery asks about specific uses of dreams in her work, and she gives examples. Hauser and Gregory discuss the meaning of love. McCaffery asks about feminism, and they discuss the treatment of women and the Handmaid’s Tale.They look at ways of working at writing. Hauser talks about reading mysteries, and Gregory mentions her book on Dashiell Hammett. They briefly discuss Hauser’s book Prince Ishmael. An edited version of this interview appears on pages 102 to 120 of Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors, ed. Larry McCaffery, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Mariko Ohara
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery, Sinda Gregory, Mari Kotani and Takayuki Tatsumi interview Mariko Ohara in a restaurant in Japan with Tatsumi providing translation. Ohara explains her start in writing fiction, including Kirk/Spock fiction and science fiction. Ohara explains she writes a “wide-screen baroque”, a mixture of metaphysical discourse with space opera. There is a discussion of the use of the term “gay fiction” for Ohara’s early writings. Ohara discusses her interest in vampires in her fiction. Ohara answers questions about her ambivalence towards women in her work. Ohara discusses the background of her story “Mental Female”. There is a discussion of the question of western notions of feminism in Ohara’s work. An edited version of this interview was published as “The Twister of Imagination: An Interview with Mariko Ohara” on pages 128-133 of Review of Contemporary Fiction Vol. 22 (2), Summer 2002., San Diego State University, a longer published version of the interview can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20080209112923/http://www.centerforbookculture.org/review/02_2_inter/interview_Ohara.html - that's the only URL available as the original one has linkrot, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Mark Danielewski, 2000
McCaffery asks about the circumstances of writing House of Leaves. The environment is very noisy. Danielewski tells about writing “Redwood” on the bus to Los Angeles when his father Tad fell ill. Danielewski talks about its literary background. He had an idea about a “house that was 1/4 of an inch bigger on the inside than the outside,” but did not know for three years that his characters lived there. McCaffery says Tad was a filmmaker, and Mark discusses Tad and family life. McCaffery thinks that Danielewski had to find “the language” for the book. Danielewski says, “I was without doubt raised on large myths,” and McCaffery asks about Danielewski’s study of Latin. He left the William Morris Agency to study Latin. He discusses deconstruction. McCaffery asks about “experimenting with typography on the page” in House of Leaves and Danielewski’s book Pale Fire. McCaffery discusses the use of footnotes and computer word processing. Danielewski talks about how word processing influences writing, and affords indexing. McCaffrey mentions reader and “levels,” and Danielewski talks about the reader’s experience. The second tape begins with Danielewski talking about reader experience. Danielewski talks about cinematic effects in prose. McCaffery asks if Danielewski worried about design elements while writing House of Leaves, and what the editing process was like. Danielewski discusses the meanings of “closed” and “open” in style and content. McCaffery asks about the poetry “written by” characters in House of Leaves. Danielewski answers by talking about writing poetry on a trip to Paris., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Mark Danielewski, 2001
McCaffery asks about Danielewski’s assertion in the first interview that he “storyboarded” House of Leaves. McCaffery asks about the metaphor of architecture, and the book Poetics of Space. They talk about The Whalestoe Letters “by” characters in House of Leaves. Danielewski also discusses powerful women. The letters, Danielewski says, lead to a “re-evaluation” of the story. Danielewski refuses to name the narrator of the book. McCaffery discusses whether characters in the film “La Strada” and House of Leaves are the same. Danielewski answers with questions and discussion of parallels between the stories. He discusses his family and the Holocaust. Danielewski discusses the use of imagination. McCaffery and Gregory discuss books versus movies. McCaffery asks about the footnotes, and Danielewski discusses his “challenge” to literary criticism. Gregory asks about a character and the “atmosphere” of the book. McCaffery asks about finding the language to express sex and horror. McCaffery comments on the art in the book, and he and Gregory discuss characters. Danielewski retells his story from the earlier interview on how he came to write “Redwood,” and also of being with his father in Spain. He then takes on the “Pelican Letters” in his book, which were poems written for people who had given Danielewski something. They discuss the play “House of Blue Leaves.” and other titles. McCaffery asks about an “audacious” passage in the book (page 205, including the footnote). They talk about how this interview will go into a book of interviews, and Danielewski makes a point about examining how things can be rearranged, like the word “snaps” turning into “spans.”, San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Mark Leyner, 1987
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Mark Leyner in Manhattan. Leyner begins by discussing his forthcoming book My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. Leyner explains how watching The Beatles inspired him to become a writer. Leyner discusses how he started as a poet and gradually moved into fiction. Leyner discusses the violence in his works. Leyner talks about his relationship to fame as a writer in relation to other post-modernists. Leyner explains the origin of the title My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. An edited version of the interview appears on pages 219 to 240 of Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors, ed. Larry McCaffery, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Mark Leyner, 1992
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery interviews Mark Leyner in Leyner’s house in Hoboken, New Jersey. They begin with a discussion of the success of Leyner’s book My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. They discuss the notion of what the “canon” means for a younger, post-modern generation. Leyner discusses in-depth the influence of pop culture on his writing. An edited version of the interview appears on pages 219 to 240 of Some Other Frequency: Interviews with Innovative American Authors, ed. Larry McCaffery, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Max Apple
Sinda Gregory and unidentified others join McCaffery in interviewing Apple. Apple’s family was Jewish, and his grandmother came from Europe, moved to Michigan, and never spoke English. When his father died he went back to Michigan, where his grandmother told him about her life: “I knew Yiddish before I knew English.” Their neighborhood was “layered” in languages. In high school, Apple made up stories and set them in type. He attended the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s where he got involved in politics but was later exposed to a “right-wing” environment at Stanford. He owned a health-food store in Houston, Texas, that did not do well, although his grandmother thought of him as a “merchant.” Apple says that although he is now critical of Israeli politics, he is a very strong Zionist, but is not in favor of ideologies. Apple’s “father was a great fan” of baseball and they would listen to and watch games together. At about 46 minutes, side two of the tape begins. Apple read John R. Tunis primarily, but then read “everything.” “When I wasn't outside playing ball I was reading.” He wanted to be a writer and did not know how, but he started writing in his undergraduate years. He does not write realism because he wants more speed “to get right to the center of everything right away.” He never knows what is going to happen next as he writes. He does not know how to type and does not like the sound of a typewriter, so he writes in longhand. He does not read literary criticism because writing is a different process. It is hard for him to teach because he must employ analytic thinking, so he cannot write imaginatively after lecturing. This interview may have been edited for Alive and Writing:Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Paul Auster
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Paul Auster over the phone to supplement a previous interview (not preserved in audio) to be combined for forthcoming publication. After a brief discussion over a recent article on Auster’s work and a forthcoming article (which never appeared) and a brief mention of the manuscript of Auster’s then forthcoming novel The Music of Chance and a longer discussion over where the interview will see print, the interview begins. Auster explains how the feeling of coincidence in life is underscored in his novels even though it leads to negative criticism. Auster discusses his financial situation before he received an inheritance when his father died and how that has influenced his fiction. Auster explains the genesis and process of writing The Music of Chance. Auster discusses his varying use of first or third person narration in his works. Auster discusses specific details in both The Music of Chance and his 1989 novel Moon Palace. Auster explains his view on why he writes novels. There is a discussion of non-literary influences such as art and music on Auster’s work. Auster concludes the interview by discussing the concept of chance and reading an excerpt from Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Separate edited versions of this (and the previous) interview appeared in Mississippi Review, Vol. 20, No. 1/2, (1991), pp. 49-62 and Contemporary Literature, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 1-23., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Raymond Carver
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Raymond Carver in his house in Port Angeles, Washington. The interview begins with a discussion of why Carver had recently returned to publishing poetry after an interview the previous year that indicated he would focus more on fiction. Carver talks about his background and how that, including his alcoholism, influenced his writing. Carver responds to questions about the “pared down” writing in his stories. Carver explains his dislike of experimentalism in fiction for the mere sake of experimenting. There is discussion over why Carver has only published short fiction and whether he would write a novel. An edited version of this interview appears on pages 66 to 82 of Alive and Writing: Interviews with American Authors of the 1980s, ed. Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory, University of Illinois Press, 1987. A taped over recording of Lou Reed’s album New Sensations underlies the left channel of the interview through the first 45 minutes. A taped over recording of Tina Turner’s album Private Dancer underlies the left channel of the interview through the second 45 minutes., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Raymond Federman, 1980
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery meets with Raymond Federman at McCaffery’s house in San Diego. Federman begins the interview with a discussion of his father and moves to a discussion of Samuel Beckett. Much of the discussion focuses on Federman’s use of autobiography in fiction, why he does not write non-fiction autobiography and how it has played into his fictional work. Federman discusses in detail the inspiration and process of his writing, specifically his first novel, Double or Nothing: A Real Fictitious Discourse. Federman explains why he does not generally write in French even though it is his native language. Federman has a long discussion about his use of masturbation in his writings before finishing with a summation of his views on language and story and why he favors the former over the latter. Different sections of the interview appear in edited versions on pages 285 to 306 of Contemporary Literature 24 (Fall 1983) and on pages 127 to 151 of Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists, ed. Tom LeClair and Larry McCaffery, University of Illinois Press, 1983., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Raymond Federman, 2000-07
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery interviews Raymond Federman in Federman’s apartment in the Rancho Bernardo neighborhood of San Diego. Federman begins by discussing the way he uses the word “Federman” to both describe himself and fictional versions of himself in his work. Federman describes the circumstances of retirement that led to his move from Buffalo to San Diego. He explains that he wishes he had the command of language that other post-modern writers had. Federman and McCaffery discuss prominent Jewish writers and the uptick in recognition of their work in the seventies. Federman goes in-depth about his own biography, including his time as a graduate student, his time as a professor and his career as a published writer. They discuss epigraphs and the use of them, most notably quotes from Samuel Beckett. In describing how he searches for his own name on the internet, Federman reads from the essay “Amerika, Ink” by Joe Tabbi. Federman explains how he can play with language by translating other people’s works into French or from French into English and synthesizing it into his own work., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Interview with Raymond Federman, 2000-11
Due to rights issues, the audio of this interview is not available online. Please contact San Diego State University, Special Collections and Archives if you wish to be granted access to the original audio. Larry McCaffery interviews Raymond Federman about his experiences during the Korean War, though Federman never actually ended up in Korea. Federman explains how he ended up in the Army in spite of not yet being a U.S. citizen and how he spent the war working in U.S. Army intelligence in Japan., San Diego State University, This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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