Mona Simpson
Mona Simpson
Mona Elizabeth Simpson is an American novelist. She has written six novels and is a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angelesand the Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth14 June 1957
CityGreen Bay, WI
CountryUnited States of America
accidental decency deeply generosity impulses inside meaningful odd particular power powerful reveal scenes specific subtle suppose time transcend
I suppose 'My Hollywood' is only as politically meaningful as it is deeply inside the least powerful of its characters. I wanted it to reveal scenes of subtle exploitation, odd instances of accidental power and challenges to decency specific to its time, but also impulses of generosity that transcend our particular era's messes.
deeply draw felt powerful prince
I've never felt powerful enough to write a true political novel, or deeply knowledgeable enough to draw a character like, say, Tolstoy's Prince Kutuzov.
memories powerful hate
I knew I would hate my best memory because it would prove that people could fake love or that love could end or worst of all, love was not powerful enough to change a life.
although came cared deal family foods great grew money original single stores
I grew up with a single mother, and although we didn't have a lot of money, she cared a great deal about what we ate. We were the original health-food family. We shopped at what were called health-food stores before Whole Foods - everything came from bins.
grew imagined knew looked poor single
I grew up as an only child with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif.
affluent cream felt job steady worked
I felt like any other American kid. I already worked at a steady job as an ice cream scooper, but I didn't feel less in any way than my more affluent friends from school.
chair conflict home material needs sitting time
If a mother is sitting in a chair at the office, someone needs to be at home with her child. In some cases, that is a father. Much of the time, the material manifestation of the conflict is a nanny.
again both daydream default eventually longer met needed relationship reunion throughout time
I eventually made the reunion with my father that I'd used as a default daydream throughout my childhood, but by then, we'd both outgrown the only relationship we could have had to each other. I was over 30 by the time I met him again and no longer needed a father.
began continued goes pacific position run series slightly sold thus until
My first job was to run a concessions cart. Later, I found a position at the Pacific Film Archive. Thus began a long series of jobs, each one slightly better than the last, that continued for a decade, until I sold my first novel, and still goes on, even now.
agreed brought clients high los school speech stay weekend
When I was in high school in Los Angeles, my mother, who was a speech therapist, agreed to stay over the weekend with one of her clients and his little sister while the parents went away on vacation. She brought me along.
children gave home kids large raising routines stayed together women
We go to college, live together or marry, and have kids - often with little more thought to the daily routines of raising children than our grandparents gave them, when women by and large stayed at home.
good hearts love vulnerable
Even more than we want good love for ourselves, we want it for our children, those vulnerable satellites of our hearts that we send, unsteady, into the world.
divorce jane less love time
It's a different thing to write a love story now than in the time of Jane Austen, Eliot, or Tolstoy. One of the problems is that once divorce is possible, once break-ups are possible, it can all become a little less momentous.
rights
The more you learn about animals and animal rights - it's an intriguing, fascinating world.