Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007 - (Page 58)

An Interview with Michael Lewis by Michael Sartisky INTRODUCTION BY PEGGY WILSON You might ask why we invited Michael Lewis to be our speaker at this year’s Tennessee Williams Festival. He is of course a celebrated and popular writer and a native son. He shares with Tennessee the distinction of being a celebrated writer and along with Key West, New York and St. Louis, we claim Tennessee as a native son. But from here the resemblance departs. Michael is not gay, he is not alcoholic, he did not have a Philistine shoe salesman for a father or a ditzy Southern belle wannabe for a mother. His family did not grow up envying the money and social position of others. His sister did not require a frontal lobotomy. Instead he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth into a happy, established and wealthy family of high social position in a city where the latter is more important than the former, he got the best education — Newman School, Princeton, London School of Economics. His father, though highly educated and intelligent, is a regular fellow who plays tennis three times a week, with my husband, by the way, and sits around the tennis club locker room in his underwear, wisecracking with the rest of the fellows. His mother is a Times-Picayune Loving Cup winner and has served on just about every non-profit board of note in the city. He lives in a perfect place in California with a perfect wife and perfect children. There was no angst. There was no suffering, except maybe not getting to third base with the Newman High girls. There was no Dostoyevskian firing squad, no discrimination, no prison, no Gestapo, no NKVD, just a better than normal life. Not the stuff writers are supposed to be made of. So where did the books come from: Blind Side, Liar’s Poker, and others? They came from pure talent, from a voice similar to Tom Wolfe and John Kennedy Toole. I’ve heard Michael’s father quote Michael that the humor on the streets of New Orleans, that self-deprecating ironic humor of a defeated people, is as profound as that of Mark Twain. His favorite book, I understand, is Confederacy of Dunces. Maybe Confederacy is not the great American novel, but it certainly is the great New Orleans novel. Perhaps Michael might direct his undeniable talent, his distinctive voice, his New Orleans sense of humor, his gift for the turn of phrase, his ability to speak about highly technical warfare and poignant relationships, perhaps Michael might direct his undeniable talent to fiction to write the second great New Orleans novel. I can’t wait. Michael Lewis, our native son. 58 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2007-08

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007 Contents Friends Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Katrina: Days of Terror, Months of Anguish Paintings by Rolland Golden The Historic New Orleans Collection The Great Ouachita River Flood of 1932 Jazz Notes Louisiana Architecture Louisiana: Where Land Meets Water Louisiana State Museum Through A Lens Sharply: An Interview with Michael Lewis MR-GO: A “miracle” mired in controversy Louisiana Foodways Louisiana Association of Museums New Orleans: An Autopsy Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2007

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