Dan Chaon, a writer in quest of identities

Dan Chaon © Philip Chaon

Micmag.net : The ideas of fate and independent choice have been recurring themes in your writings. Can you explain why ?

Dan Chaon : I think that one reason I’m so fascinated with this idea is because I was adopted.  I was aware from a very young age that my situation in the world was random.  I could have been adopted by anyone, I could have grown up in so many different lives.  So why this one?   The question was exacerbated by the fact that I was very different from my adoptive family.  

I grew up in a rural area; most people were poor, and didn’t have a college education.  I ended up going to Northwestern University, which had a lot of very polished, wealthy students, and became a college professor who lives in an urban area. How did this happen? It still seems very unlikely, and so I keep prodding at the question of identity, of how we become the people we become.  

M.: Very often, the writers never go back to short fiction once they published their first novel, not you. What can short fiction do that novels can’t and vice-versa ?

D.C.: I recently read an interview with the American author Joy Williams in which she said, « A novel wants to befriend you, a story almost never. » I liked that description.  

The thing I like about short stories is the way that they exist in mystery. They start in the middle and end in the middle, and there is all this unexplained space surrounding them, which the readers must fill in for themselves, if they can. In this way, short stories are like photographs. We can’t see what’s beyond the frame. They resist the kind of explanation and world-building that are necessary in novels.   

M.: What writers are inspiring you ?

D.C.: I mentioned Joy Williams, above. I’m very inspired by her work. I am a fan of many of the writers who  attended the latest  America festival* in France, including Karen Joy Fowler, Marlon James, Sam Lipsyte, Stewart O’Nan— among many others.   I’m thrilled that my former student, Megan Kruse, was at the festival, because I love her work so much, and I’m so happy to see her getting international attention!   

* The America Festival in Vincennes (France), from september the 8th to september the 11 th, 2016.

Writer Dan Chaon, talking  about his working process.

Dan Chaon 's latest novel :
Await Your Reply,
Imprint: Ballantine Books, 2009.

Translation in French : Surtout rester éveillé,(Traduit par Hélène Fournier),
Ed. Albin Michel, Septembre 2014
320 p., 22 €.