Allan Gurganus

Writing means being a fascinated slave to current events.

I'm a great admirer of Primo Levi's work. It's always mind-boggling, the idea of how much pain people can endure and still come back from the edge with a sense of humor, with this tremendous animal desire we have to get on with life.

He, the true writer, is the department store dummy at the very center of the whole establishment, the one left alone on display all night, a price tag stapled to every piece of clothing they__e yanked onto him, binoculars and frog flippers included. He is the neutral, generic human form, the gray center who must always assume disguises _ in order to be seen and, therefore, to feel himself.