Reviving the past, one revision at a time
Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer Jennifer Egan comes to Harvard on Monday to talk about her craft as part of the Writers Speak series at the Mahindra Humanities Center. Her 6 p.m. conversation at Paine Hall in the Music Building with fellow novelist Claire Messud, a senior lecturer in English, will cover Egan’s success with “A Visit from the Goon Squad” and offer a peek into her forthcoming historical novel, “Manhattan Beach.” In a Gazette Q&A she talked about honing her skills as an oral historian, writing her books by hand, and learning how to let a story live. GAZETTE: It’s been almost six years since you published “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” which won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award. Did you intend to take such a long break? EGAN: I’ve been researching “Manhattan Beach” [due out in October], which is research-heavy and long, since 2005. It...