"Virgin Suicides" author gets comfortable 20 years later

I was listening to the BBC on the radio Sunday night and heard an interview with author Jeffrey Eugenides on the "Talking Books" programme (must include the "e" because it's British, after all). Eugenides is best known for his first book "The Virgin Suicides" because of the movie adaptation. But his follow-on book, "Middlesex," won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2003.

He has just published his third book, "The Marriage Plot," which prompted the interview. Most of the interview discussion is about his fiction books and characters, but I thought writers of any genre could relate to his final comments, which I include below.

His message has both good and bad ramifications. Good because they show even a talented, recognized writer struggles; bad because it shows those struggles can last up to two decades before authors begin to feel even somewhat comfortable with writing.

Hope no one's in a hurry.

Host:
"Since your debut with “The Virgin Suicides”… you have written two other novels. Do you feel that you have come of age now… do you feel completely at ease as a writer?"

Jeffrey Eugenides:
"I think I’m getting the hang of it. I’m just getting a sense that I can do it again.
Your first book… Don DeLillo once told me your first book comes to you as a gift – you don’t know how you wrote it, somehow you did. And your second book is the book that teaches you that you actually can do it.
I agree with that but after the third I feel more so, as though this is what I can do. I’m not that kind of novelist who’s always going to repeat the same kind of novel. Usually, I rebel against the novel before and change it up quite a bit.
But I do feel a kind of… I had terrible, terrible anxiety on the level of the sentence for the first 20 years of my writing career. Didn’t know how I wanted my books to sound, didn’t know how to write, didn’t know if I could actually get my point across in a certain way. And that started to go away and recede in writing “The Marriage Plot” and that feels like maturity - I don’t know if it is but it feels like a kind of maturity. I was pleased about it and I think I’ll stay in the same mode for the next couple of books."

The audio file of the interview will remain up on the BBC site until Nov. 21.