Compulsive Reader - An interview with Robert McKean

Interview by Caitlin Hamilton Summie

“How did this book originate?

Some years ago, between longer writing projects, I wrote a story. I hadn’t written a short story in a while, and the experience was liberating: imagining a finite scenario and drafting and revising the piece in a few weeks. Then I discovered a minor character in a novel and wrote another story, then another. Before the year was out I had ten new stories, almost all of which have been subsequently published. One of those stories was entitled “The Teardown Party” and featured a new character whom I knew little about but liked. The setting comprised a small house being torn down to be replaced by a McMansion, a teardown party with a band, beer and pop and hotdogs, and a formidable wrecker, an excavator, I learned. And of course there’s an accident involving the construction equipment and a child on a bicycle…”

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