Episode 53 - David Gates: Part 4

In the fourth and penultimate part of our podcast with David Gates, we set out by talking about money - how to earn it, keep writing, earn money from writing.
Gates recalls his 29 years at Newsweek before shifting to:

• how long he can write at any one stretch
• being a relatively late-starter
• 'There is something quaint and old-fashioned about being a writer'
  
• Desolation Row - music vs literature
• literary critical ambitions: dissertations and elaborate theories
• Ann Beattie - marriage and inspiration
  
• 'I was astonished that she was making literature out of lives like ours...It never occurred to me'
• working off influence: 'I cannot be Beckett...How can I be me?'
• Barthelme, Pynchon - postmodernism?
• Gates and music: 'I can see why you would devote your life to that if you could have that hour of absolutely transcendent beauty'
• Gates and religion: 'I am so glad you asked about that...'
• Gates, romance, divorce: 'Do we have trouble with intimacy? Did I sit around thinking too much?'
• characters and temporariness.

The fifth and final part to follow.