Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan discusses her creative process, including working against her previous aesthetic, relying on a writer's group that reads aloud, and her deep skepticism of AI in writing. She also reveals how her brother's schizophrenia shaped her view of consciousness and argues that fiction's purpose is to let readers fly into another mind.
Summarized by Podsumo
Jennifer Egan deliberately works against her previous aesthetic: after the fragmented Goon Squad, she wrote the direct, no-irony historical novel Manhattan Beach.
She relies on a writer’s group that reads aloud—reacting to the work as a group—and insists 'I trust almost anyone more than myself' to judge her drafts.
Egan finds AI 'revolting' because it 'embodies groupthink,' which she fights to escape in her fiction.
Her brother’s schizophrenia taught her how psychosis can be hidden and how mental health awareness has changed since the 1990s.
She says her goal is to make characters’ bad choices feel 'necessary and right,' avoiding judgment, which she finds 'not very interesting.'
"I trust almost anyone more than myself because I'm completely compromised."
— Jennifer Egan
"To give us the experience we will never have in real life of being inside a different consciousness — it's like being able to fly."
— Jennifer Egan
"I just object to [AI] so strenuously. It seems to embody groupthink, and every cell in my body is trying to get beyond groupthink."
— Jennifer Egan