Welcome to the Interviews section of Worldguide! You have found the October 21, 1996 interview with writer of books and screenplays, Paul Auster, aired on the Futurist Radio Hour in the San Francisco Bay Area. Well-known novelist, Paul Auster, is known for his whacky life comedies and pecuiliar perceptions. Director Wayne Wang lured Auster into producing "Smoke," a delightful film starring Harvey Kietel. Questions or comments about Interviews? Feel free to let us know what's on your mind.
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CAPEN: I'd like to delve into the past as our departure point. You were, at one time, a merchant seaman, and I wonder how this came about.
AUSTER: It's true, I did work for about six months on an Esso oil tanker. I got the job after I left college. I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. I didn't want to be an academic, which is probably what I was best suited for, but I just didn't want to be in school anymore, and the idea of spending my life in a university was just awesomely terrible. I had no real profession, no trade, I hadn't really studied for anything. All I wanted to do was write at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn't need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.
It turned out that my stepfather, who was a person I was very close to, the person to whom I dedicated Moon Palace, Norman Schiff, a wonderful man who earned his living as a labor lawyer and negotiator. One of his clients was the Esso Seamen's Union, a company union. So I knew all about these ships and as I was about to leave school I said, "Norman, do you think you can get me a job on a ship?" and he said "I'll take care of it for you." It's extremely difficult to get these jobs because you can't get a job on a ship unless you have seaman's paper's, and you can't get seaman's papers unless you have a job on a ship. There had to be a way to break through the circle, and he was the one who arranged it for me. So I shipped out. It's quite amusing, I went through all the exams, I got my papers, and then I had to sit around and wait until a ship from the fleet came into the New York area with an opening, and it was unclear how long this wait was going to be. | |
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