Ann Patchett, writer: "All my ideas about the craft of writing I have learned from Snoopy"

It is eight in the morning in Nashville, a few days after a former student at a Christian school shot and killed six people, including three 9-year-old boys.

Deeply affected, Ann Patchett (59 years old, Los Angeles), who moved to the capital of Tennessee as a six-year-old girl, shows more interest in talking about what the attack means than in her own books.

The first thing that comes to her head is how the tragedy was experienced from Parnassus Books, the independent bookstore that she founded 12 years ago.

“The school is just a mile [1.6 kilometers] from the bookstore,” she says moments after answering the video call.

“The attack was on a Monday, early Tuesday morning we uploaded a video to the Internet inviting people to come and the response was overwhelming.

Parents came with their children

some even with their dogs.

It was something very special.

When something like this happens, no one knows how to react.

There was a general desire to share support and affection, to do something, even if you didn't know exactly what."

More information

Ann Patchett: "My brain is a plant that is growing well"

Author of half a dozen non-fiction titles and eight novels, including

(2001),

(2016)

and

(2019),

all of them translated into Spanish, Ann Patchett is a simple person, who barely gives importance to her achievements.

She does not mention it at any point in the conversation, but two weeks ago she was awarded the Humanities Medal for her literary career, at a ceremony at the White House [on March 21] in which the president, Joe Biden, also recognized the work of Bruce Springsteen, Richard Blanco, Amy Tan and Colson Whitehead, among other artists and writers.

Ann Patchett and Joe Biden at the White House, March 21. Al Drago (Bloomberg)

Her most recent book, These Precious Days, has just appeared in Spanish, a singular collection of essays in which the author reflects on topics as diverse as the challenges faced by those who decide to dedicate their lives to writing, the traps

falsehoods

of literary fame, the intense friendship that he established with the personal assistant of Bruce Willis, a victim of terminal cancer, with whom he lived closely the last months of his life, or the literary career of a writer as unlikely as Snoopy, Charlie Brown's

unforgettable

.

“The personal essay is something that is directly nourished by your life.

I wrote most of the texts during the pandemic, at a time that revolved around my friendship with Sooki, Bruce Willis's assistant, with whom I collaborated on a professional project for the publication of a book by Bruce, after the which the actor agreed to give voice to an audiobook of mine.

Death is the guiding thread of the book, but I do not approach the subject from a negative perspective, but rather as something inextricable from the very texture of life”.

Patchett is part of the great tradition of American essayists, among whom William Maxwell, David Foster Wallace and Judith Thurman stand out as major influences, to whom he adds the British Zadie Smith.

But it is in the field of fiction where the name of the person who has influenced her the most is most striking, a writer who is neither a man nor a woman, Snoopy, Charlie Brown's dog, to whom she dedicates one of the most delicious essays in the world. book.

Is he serious?

"Absolutely.

An editor asked me to write about the Peanuts characters and I immediately thought of Snoopy.

I hadn't read Schulz's comics since childhood, and when I did I found to my astonishment that all my ideas about writing had been learned from Snoopy.

The stress that comes with writing something, sending it to a publisher, waiting for their reaction, finding someone who wants to publish, rejections, finding an agent.

Snoopy went through all of that and his struggle is something I absorbed as a child, but more important is his inner life as a writer.

Snoopy identified with the characters he brought to life in his imagination and lived them in his head.

He saw himself as a failed writer.

He would rage and bang on the mailbox and knock over the plate of food and be frustrated and devastated,

Cover of the collection of essays 'These precious days', from the editorial Adn.ADN

In another essay, Patchett reflects on the ephemeral nature of literature with regard to John Updike, who exerted an enormous influence on her during her formative years.

When she recently read it again, she found to her astonishment that she had ceased to interest him.

“As I progressed, my interest gradually dissipated until it disappeared completely.

It is the fate of many of the writers who seem important to us today.

Literature is as subject to the dictates of fashion as clothing, what is worn today is outdated the following year.

Rereading those who were once great is a dangerous exercise.

I think of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth.

Reading them today is a different experience.

The cases of Updike, Bellow and Roth, who gave so much importance to such an issue, made me think that nobody writes about sex anymore”.

Another sample of the sense of humor with which Patchett approaches his subjects is the essay entitled

.

“When I go to a cemetery and see that none of the tombstones have my name on it, I think: 'Well, I'm not here yet.'

When I entered the academy I went to the gallery of portraits of its members, where the faces of the still living are intermingled with those of the dead, and I thought that one day someone would look at mine after I died.

A few weeks later I received a letter announcing the death of Denis Johnson, with his name inscribed on a card.

From then on, cards with more names began to arrive: Sam Shepard, Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe…”.

Patchett is interrupted, disappears from the screen and after a moment returns with a small wooden box in which he accumulates the cards of the dead writers, as if it were a collective coffin.

“The last one was Alfred Leslie, the painter,” he notes.

But as she herself is quick to point out, death is nothing more than the excuse to affirm the most positive aspects of existence, and in her case nothing radiates more vitality than her dedication to Parnassus Book.

Converted into one of the neuralgic points of Nashville's cultural life, according to Patchett, the bookstore is much more important than her own books.

“Parnassus Books has done more for literature than anything I have written.

We have created a space that celebrates reading and the work of other writers.

We dedicate a leading role to children.

We have created a foundation that, among other things, finances the cost of books that we send to poor children who cannot afford them.

We bring black writers to neighborhood schools.

It has been shown that children who read are more likely to succeed in life”.

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