I have been thinking about the question of autobiography, and my conclusion is that it is a total scam from the lit crit industrial complex because, like, autobiography is not that interesting.

I mean, like, specifically in fiction contexts. I guess, like, when you're black and publish a novel, people already think you just, wrote down your life and that was that and there was no art involved, and, like, doubly so when you, oopsie, title your novel Real Life.

My general strategy when asked about the question of autobiography has been to acknowledge that there are resonances between Wallace's life and my own, but also, the novel is 99.9% made up. It's fiction. And I guess I just find the question of autobiography uninteresting.

And maybe that is naive of me, but I actually don't care how close a novel is to the life of the artist. Like it's not even a tertiary concern of mine when I'm reading. Unless the book is deficient in some other way and then the question of autobiography becomes interesting.

But not because I am nosey. But because the book is otherwise bored. I am starting to realize that I am just like, a deeply un-nosey person. I have a fundamental lack of curiosity re: the parts of people's lives they do not want to share.

Someone asked me about Knausgaard and my love of those books, and my love of those books is predicated 100% on his sentences and the banality of life and the ruminations on meaning. I think very little of the correspondences between author and the Karl Ove of the novel.

I am not interested in the gotcha gesture of contemporary literary thought where the critic snatches the mask off like removing the disguise of a Scooby Doo villain like they've done some magic trick of revelatory excavation. Like, I truly do not care.

All fiction is graft work. Everything is made up out of the material of life. I don't understand how it is interesting to point and gawk and say, "AHA!!! SEE!!! THAT IS A THING THAT HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE!" while ignoring all of the other more interesting parts of the art.

To me, the question of autobiography is a signal that the imagination has failed at some critical point. It's a lack of engagement. It's just grunt detective work. No real thought. It's a child's matching game, and that's about it.

Anyway, that is all. I'm not a critic. I don't know anything about books. I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere and did not attend liberal arts college. What do I know.

I was recently asked about Real Life's title, and I said, "Listen, I'm black and gay. I could have written the novelization of Biker Mice from Mars and critics still would have called it an autobiographical novel."

I mean, to be clear, it's totally okay if that is your thing. I just kind of don't care. Except in a salacious way. Which is perhaps...not a sign of genuine artistic engagement, lmfao

The idea of "did this really happen?" and like, yes, and also no, and also yes, and also no. All fiction comes from life. I think also, when people sniff at autobiographical first novels, I want to ask them if they could have written a novel at all.

I mean, it is true that many autobiographical first novels suffer from narcissism and solipsism and sentimentality. A lack of distance. Many of them could have used, it's true, more editing. More care. But like. As a form, it's no worse than other kinds of novels.

This ancient presupposition that writing from life is some how worse is the same insidious supposition that says that black people writing about black people is somehow easy and therefore their work is mere sociology.

I think bad writing is a failure of craft, which is at heart, usually a failure of nerve. And I think good writing is when your nerve holds and you can do what you have to do to tell the truth through your writing.

I mean, I'd hold Alexander Chee's Edinburgh up against any of the novels of the last thirty, forty, fifty years. I mean, also this ridiculous false idiom of "autobiographical fiction" is itself so uninteresting. All fiction comes from life. It is how you learn how people operate.

Not to get all identity girl about it, but the whole category feels very...patriarchal and white. This idea that one can write a novel that is not in some way inflected by your position as a person in the world who exists. Like get out of here. There is no objective fiction.

Anyway, I grew up on a farm in rural Alabama. I don't know anything about books. I didn't attend liberal arts school or write for the magazines. Have a great day.