Indeed it seems that we're supposed to turn these letters over to the powers that be, which means we can soon revert to our former adolescent, scatological, grammatically-lax conversational style.

Glad the tour is going well and that you are enjoying it. Did you get to see that Ajax game while in Holland? (That's the Jewish football club, yes? Here I prove that even my limited knowledge of sports has Jewish undertones to it.) Also glad you've been enjoying the interviews. I know I'm looking forward to reading them when they come out, as they should be scandalous. You're the only new-kid-on-the-block writer-person I know who happily volunteers a list of living legends whose writing you can't bear and who will attack any widely-accepted convention of modern literature (only a taste of which, I think, shows up in your snipes at the workshop mentality which you so kindly sent this ex-workshopper).

I have no idea if there's a short story revival. I know that people declare the short story dead every year only to turn their heads when one goes running by. It's kind of like a Monty Python skit, the short story perpetually rearing up after it's been thrown in with the corpses and clunked on the head.

A big part of the writing process for me is terror, the seeming (hopefully, seeming) unexecutability of whatever it is with which I'm consumed. So I wouldn't call the short story more complex than the novel or vice versa. The form I'm not working in at a given time will, I'm guessing, always seem simpler. I have a book of stories that I can hold in my hand, stories that I'm no longer deeply involved in, so in some ways the story looks friendlier these days. I have plenty to say about the differences between the two, but I dare not climb up onto my soapbox without a published novel to wave around in the air and bang my fist against.

You willing to share any wisdom on that front (especially after I've portrayed you as fearless upstart)?

Hoping that you're still enjoying yourself, getting some rest, avoiding all potholes, shell-craters, slippery steps, and otherwise avoiding further injury.

All My Best,
Nathan

Amsterdam was great, so was London. I did go to an Ajax game, and it was a lot of fun. Ajax is still very much a Jewish team--the hard core fans exhibited a few Israeli flags at the game--but it's been a while since it was exclusively a Jewish team. As for soccer, one can approach any event of human history through soccer.

The interviews were fun. I praised your book whenever I had a chance, using you as an example of great contemporary (American) fiction.

I don't know how to write a novel. The only way I can write a novel, it seems to me, is to write a very, very long story. So good luck.

Yes, yes, I know I sound like a cocky upstart, and I am sorry if my peevish babbling offended you. My sister and I have been thinking about establishing a company called Hemon Insulting, Inc--we would provide insulting services: you hate your boss, talk to Hemon Insulting, Inc. You want to hurt your ex-husband, the Hemons will insult for you.

But my complaint is not a complaint of a know-it-all, deluded novice, but of a disgruntled veteran reader. I would be the happiest person (writer, reader) in the world if American fiction were as good as it likes to think it is. I am sure I'll get to pay for my disrespect of the American fiction giants.

And now we must go back to scatology and sex, back to the freedom of irresponsible adolescence. We must say goodbye and return to the promised land of American manhood, where a thousand flowers of male midlife crises bloom, and where the wise giants--veterans of many a bloody divorce--rule, when not teaching creative writing courses.

This letter exchange, however, was much better, and I will long for moments like these. Adieu, my friend.

Yours,
Sasha