John Sayles gets the Michael Silverblatt treatment Thursday
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John Sayles, best known as a filmmaker, has been nominated for two Oscars. Those nominations came in, however, for writing -- for his screenplays ‘Passion Fish’ and ‘Lone Star.’ And Sayles can write -- he wrote a big, big novel published by McSweeney’s in May.
‘A Moment in the Sun’ is a whopping 968 pages.
It wasn’t Sayles’ first book. He published ‘Los Gusanos’ in 1990; before that, 1977’s ‘Union Dues’ was nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. But by the time 2009 arrived, Sayles had a 1,000-page manuscript -- then titled ‘Some Time in the Sun’ -- out to several publishers, but no bites. He told The Times:
‘I write a book every 15 years, and by the time I have another one done, I really don’t know anybody in the business,’ he says. ‘It’s just not my world.’ When he finished ‘Some Time in the Sun’ -- of which he’s immensely proud -- he had no illusions: ‘There’s no way a publisher is going to be influenced just by somebody mentioning my name. They’ll check out the numbers of the latest title.’
Sayles will be interviewed by Michael Silverblatt on his public radio show, Bookworm, Thursday July 7. The show airs live at 2:30 p.m. Pacific on KCRW-FM (89.9), and is simulcast on the Web.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
