I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.
Matthew SpecktorIt's hard enough to make a novel a novel. I wouldn't know how to make it something else at the same time
Matthew SpecktorThere was a moment when the Berlin Wall came down and some people felt, "Oh capitalism won. That's the ideology we can believe in now."
Matthew SpecktorHollywood is famous for breeding monsters, and having worked in the business, I've known a lot of them. But only intermittently have I ever found them monstrous. They have many other qualities.
Matthew SpecktorThe '90s were a time when not just the movie business, but every aspect of American life, became a lot more corporate. There's a line in Jonathan Franzen's essay "Perchance to Dream" about how "the rich lateral dramas of local manners have been replaced by a single vertical drama, that of commercial generality." I wanted to examine that great homogenizing force that came in during the '90s, since Hollywood seemed a place where it was particularly active.
Matthew Specktor