stands that have no substantive value. Sartre refused the Nobel Prize. How many lives did that save? Almond was teaching at Boston Collegeâ
DAVID: Where he quit.
CALEB: âwhen Condoleezza Rice was invited to give the commencement speech.
DAVID: You wonder if there wasnât another motivation on his part.
CALEB: It got him on Fox News.
DAVID: I saw something by him recently called âTwenty Tough Questions for Barack Obama.â A very, very stock liberal critique of Obama. I come close to sharing virtually all of Almondâs politics, but I donât pretend to be a political scientist. He always winds up writing 1,500-word articles for
Slate
called âSteve Almondâs Solution to the Palestinian Crisis.â
DAVID: Did you ever feel compelled to have a conventional profession?
CALEB: No.
DAVID: Did you actively seek out a bohemian life?
CALEB: After college I worked construction and tried to be a musician. I never considered a career or saving for the future.
DAVID: How did you tend to support yourself abroad?
CALEB: Teaching ESL: English asâ
DAVID: I know what âESLâ stands for. Did Terry ever put any pressure on you to have a career?
CALEB: No. Sheâs pretty good about it. Itâs not like Iâm a doctor and could walk into a six-figure job. And taking care of the children is a job. I could see myself teaching later.
DAVID: Do you have genuine expertise as an ESL teacher?
CALEB: No.
DAVID: In any case, the point being, I wonder if weâve married slightly more rational and commonsensical people than we are ourselves. You wife is in advertising?
CALEB: Close enough. Technically, sales, but linked to marketing/advertising. And your wifeâs at Fred Hutchinsonâfund-raising?
DAVID: Sheâs a project manager. They study things like whether night-shift workers are more likely to get prostate cancer. Did you ever go out with people in the arts?Writers? Does it surprise you that you married someone whoâs not an artist?
CALEB: Yeah.
DAVID: Me, too.
CALEB: When I was overseas, I never thought Iâd marry an American. I thought Iâd settle overseas. Probably Asia.
DAVID: Then, in 2003â
CALEB: Sorry to interrupt â¦
DAVID: No, go ahead.
CALEB: How much of your stuff does Laurie read? Does she criticize drafts? Does she read only the published book? Does she like your work?
DAVID: Iâd say itâs one of the sadnesses of my life. She reads my work and she semi-likes it sometimesâthereâll be passages she likesâbut sheâs not exactly riveted. She liked
The Thing About Life
okay, I think, and she liked
Dead Languages
, but that was a long time ago. Sheâs a huge David Foster Wallace fan; sheâs always apotheosizing Wallace. Enough about Wallace!
Sheâs a very smart person whoâs not literary, so sheâll say, âI read
Reality Hunger
, and I kind of agree with it. I, too, am weary of fiction.â And that will be her whole comment. Itâs a book I spent years writing, but itâs not in her to say, âItâs brilliant,â or on the other hand, âI liked this, but I quarreled with that.â In general, sheâs not crazy about my work. How about Terry? Has she read all your essays and stories?
CALEB: No. You remember my story set in Thailandâthe one I gave you, published in
Post Road
? Terry still hasnât read that story. Itâs four pages. I told her Iâd like her to read it,showed it to her, put it on her nightstand, and left it there. If sheâs read it, she never told me. The only things she likes come from my
Notes of a Sexist Stay-at-Home Father
family blog. I write stuff like âWhat do you call a guy who hates giving women backrubs?â
DAVID: Is this a joke?
CALEB: A massage-ynist. But my serious stuff she hates or isnât interested in. I have to twist her arm to read any of it. She usually finds it boring, calls me a