Let's get right to it: On page 5 of Paul Murray's dazzling new novel, 'Skippy Dies,'... Skippy dies. If killing your protagonist with more than 600 pages to go sounds audacious, it's nothing compared with the literary feats Murray pulls… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
I think suspense should be like any other color on a writer's palette. I suppose I'm in the minority but I think it's crazy for 'literary fiction' to divorce itself from stories that are suspenseful, and assign anything with cops… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
For many people it's Facebook, or sports on TV, whatever it is. I have my own demons that I battle. But whatever they are,… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
Without sounding overly sentimental about the process, I'd say trying to describe how you tend to conceive of a book is like describing how… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
“What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough?” — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always be fiction,… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
In seventh grade, with some vague sense that I wanted to be a writer, I crouched in the junior high school library stacks to… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
“There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
“And Pasquale forced himself to look away from her then. It was like prying a magnet off steel, but he did it: he turned… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
I've been simultaneously drawn to and repelled from Hollywood for years. — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
I cling to the idea that Herman Melville had to work at the end of his career watching ships in a dock, as a… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
