Warren Adler

lexXicon: You write books that hit nerves. Many of them feature couples in marriages which are somewhat less than ideal, the most well-known of which is probably The War of the Roses. Most of us know people who have been through a divorce or have experienced it ourselves, but this is a novel of extremes. People read it and breathe a sigh of relief: "And I thought my divorce was bad...." You wrote it around the time the divorce rate was starting to really climb in America. Tell me how the book evolved and how the concept originated. Was there a conscious thought toward making a broad statement about marriage and divorce, or are people missing some point if they think of it only as a book about divorce?

ADLER: It may strike you as pretentious, but I do strive in my stories to find an original approach to illustrate a moral dilemma. In the case of Roses, I was consciously trying to illustrate the dangers inherent in galloping materialism. In 1979 when the novel was written, the so-called Yuppie generation was on an unprecedented acquisition binge. It struck me then as an orgy of greed. It needed a metaphor, and it came in the form of this story of the divorce of the Roses, two quintessential Yuppies who had bought into the materialism and acquisition philosophy whole hog.

The story came to me through a chance comment by a friend who told me he was divorcing and had been advised by his lawyer not to leave the house under any circumstances for fear his wife might abscond with some of their prized possessions. The wife, too, received the same advice from her lawyer. Shazam! The idea was the spark to dry tinder that had been lying around in my cluttered mind. Miraculously, a story began to emerge, characters came to life, then interaction between them, creating incidents, episodes, a structure. In the creative process stories do not get hatched whole like chicks. They grow in the subconscious, sometimes in unruly ways. In the process of writing, characters flesh out, become real, behave in different ways. What starts out in conscious logic disappears into the subconscious then emerges through story.

My idea to illustrate the dangers of materialism is now cloaked in story, most of which has been worked out deep in the subconscious. I hope I am not getting too metaphysical, but just look at how the fate of the Roses comes full circle to my original idea. The Roses are, literally, destroyed by their possessions. They are killed in their own house, after they have destroyed most of their most prized acquisitions. The movie people caught the cautionary tale aspect of the story and by a weird miracle, rare in Hollywood, managed to convey the real intent of the my original premise. It turns out that it hit a universal nerve. I think it spoke to the mean "relationship," marriage being the ultimate coming together of strangers in what is, in our time, an optional condition since it can so easily be terminated.

Wherever I travel in the world, people will tell me how the story profoundly affected them, especially during their divorce proceedings. Many have said they have walked away without contesting the possession aspect because of what they learned about how obsession with "things" distorts human relationships. Frankly, it never fails to amaze me that this story made such an impact. At a reading recently, two Yale Professors, both psychiatrists, came up to me and told me they actually teach my book in their classes. There are thousands of references to it on the Internet. I started out with an idea that became something far beyond my aspirations and has come to mean different things to different people. Maybe that's what communication is all about.

lexx: You mentioned marriage being easily terminated and therefore optional in our culture. Recently Ireland enacted new law that makes divorce legal there. Reports are that some 90,000 Irish couples are separated and presumably awaiting divorce. Many Americans might be surprised to know divorce is not already routine in all Western countries. Going back to your comment about materialism and greed, the Yuppie syndrome - as you see it, what's at the root of greed ... is it an exaggerated sense of "looking out for number one" at all costs, and if so, is America's divorce rate just an extrapolation of that idea? Is there something about American culture in particular which feeds or allows for the perpetuation of the "me first, screw you" attitude? As a writer, you're a keen observer and chronicler of human behavior. So how does it look from where you sit: Is this really man's true natural state - one of inherent selfishness - which simply refuses to be suppressed any longer, or is it a perversion?

ADLER: You sure are dealing with weighty subjects here, Linda! I, too, think about these things all the time. They are the fodder that nourishes my books, the characters of which search for the moral center in all things. I'm not sure there is a simple correlation between divorce and greed, although there certainly is a relationship. More and more, I'm beginning to believe that the time-frame between desire and self-gratification has narrowed considerably in this century. Technology has made galloping strides in accomplishing tasks instantly or much sooner than before and somehow this has permeated the human character.

For example, man used to transport himself on foot, then came the wheel, then the wagon, then the internal combustion engine, then the airplane. How frustrating would it be for us to go back to the horse to take us from place to place? Knowing the speed of the airplane, we would be frustrated beyond measure to resort to horse travel. This is not an extreme example since it illustrates the point that the time frame of gratification, in this case getting from point to point, has shrunk. It has also shrunk in all domestic endeavors. We have gotten used to getting what we want as fast as we want it and conversely have lost patience with anything that inhibits quick self-gratification.

It takes time and patience to build a lasting relationship. Romantic love, which is the mysterious engine that creates attraction and marriage, either disappears or leavens with time. Speedy self-gratification, requited love, loses its intensity. Gratification begins to disappoint. People look for it in other places, in acquisition, in consumerism, in new sexual partners, new thrills, new experiences. Couple that with the ease with which divorce is achieved and you have a recipe for quick change. If it doesn't immediately gratify, throw it away, try something new, a new car, a new sexual partner, a new wife, a new husband. Advertising, the great seducer, creates instant needs, then other needs, and on and on. Gratification means satisfaction and we are conditioned to become perpetually dissatisfied. It's probably an irreversible trend and frankly I don't know how it can be managed or even if it's right or wrong for most people. If it hurts people, like innocent kids for example, then it's wrong and the statistics back it up.

As for happiness, I'm not sure I completely understand what that means. Blame Jefferson for inserting it into the psyche of the American experience. Is happiness euphoria, contentment, excitement, achievement, fulfillment of various dreams and yearnings, the absence of frustration or stress, freedom from economic worries or whatever. And is it perpetual and sustainable. Does it come in short bursts, brief moments or does it last and, if so, how long? Do most people grapple with these themes? Probably not consciously. It's writer's meat.

lexx: Tell me the first book you remember reading that deeply affected you.

ADLER: In terms of the first books that set me aglow... I was a freak for series books that I took out of the library when I was a kid. The Boy Allies, Bomba the Jungle Boy, the Hardy Boys. I couldn't get enough of them. When I was older I was blown away by Thomas Wolfe (the older one) whose works I gulped down in my late teens and early twenties. And I loved W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. He was a lovely writer that will one day be rediscovered. Many, many books have set me on fire, e.g. books by Hemingway, Faulkner, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgurnief, Thackery, Hardy and on and on. I collect leather bound sets by these writers and live among them in my library work room.

lexx: I saw a line somewhere once, one of Heinlein's characters speaking, which was "It hurts less to write than it does not to write." That stuck in my mind because it rang true for me. I'm not sure if the idea was that writers are generally tortured souls or if he was going for something a little less dramatic, but the point still seemed real to me: it's not like it's a choice. Is it that way for you?

ADLER: Heinlein had it right. A writer of fiction, a work of the imagination, is a calling, not a choice. You're getting into metaphysics if you ask how that comes about. My mother was a voracious reader of novels. Does that mean that I was called to be a writer to please my mother? I wrote my first novel when I was sixteen. I never tried to publish it. When I was seventeen I started college and my Professor of freshman English at NYU inspired me further by his comments about my work. His name was Don Wolfe and after college I studied creative writing under him at the New School in New York. In my class was Mario Puzo and many, many fine writers, some who published, some who never did. Our short stories were published in two collections.

While I did other things to make a living at first, I burned to become a published writer. Was I delirious when my first book was published? You bet. I was 45 years old and thought I had landed in paradise. Was I delirious when my books were sold to the movies? Absolutely. I love to be read. I love my books adapted for the movies. I love to talk about my books. I love lecturing and reading my books aloud. In fact, I love the whole enchilada.

lexx: A semantics thing - do you prefer to be called an author or a writer?

ADLER: It doesn't matter to me whether I'm called a writer or an author or whatnot. I have received fabulous reviews and awful reviews. My books do much better in Europe than in America, which I take as a compliment. The point is that a real writer writes all the time, sleeping or awake, eventually published or not. His mind churns out infinite story possibilities, characters, situations, relationships, plots, dialogue. He observes everything around him through his five senses, hardly conscious of his observations until they recycle themselves through his words. A true writer's happiness comes only when he writes and rewrites and rewrites. It is always deliciously painful, and wickedly challenging. It is an ongoing struggle to meld form with content, to create narrative drive, suspense and continuing interest. A writer creates a one-on-one communication system. Me to you. No one in between. Most people, I have discovered, are too linear to understand what I'm talking about. Only creative artists themselves truly understand the process. Yet most people do struggle to comprehend the great riddle.

A clue might be found in the three questions I am always asked wherever I travel, on whatever continent, by people of every type, race or persuasion. It is eerie and implies a mysterious human connection. Most writers I know have been asked these three questions: (1) When do you write, meaning time of day; (2) How do you write, meaning by quill pen, pencil or computer; and (3) Where do you get your ideas? My own interpretation of these questions is that the askers are trying to find the holy grail of a writer's life and method. I am always tolerant of these questions, especially the last one, which tells me that they haven't got a clue about the process and yearn for the key that opens it up. A writer's ideas come from "everywhere and anywhere." A writer's mind is like a sponge, absorbing everything. Expunging and organizing the liquid is his talent.

lexx: Jumping back - earlier you talked about exploring human nature and addressing moral dilemmas through your writing. It seems especially fitting that I ask this question - Does cloning creep you out as much as it does me?

ADLER: Cloning does creep me out. It's inevitable. But it may do away with the old fashioned way to make people. Imagine duplicates of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln. That's the good news. Remember the book "The Boys From Brazil" by Ira Levin? They made a movie with Gregory Peck. They cloned a whole batch of Adolf Hitlers. That's the scary part. There's a lot here for mad scientist speculation, most of it possible.

lexx: In keeping with the theme, and since the new century is bearing down upon us, what five things would you place into a time capsule at the turn of the century to illustrate for future generations the state of mankind in the year 2000?

ADLER:. (1) A book of short stories by Ernest Hemingway to illustrate how to write a simple declarative sentence. (2) A copy of "The Joy of Sex" to illustrate how they used to make babies. (3) A tape of a Clinton press conference to illustrate the wonders of obfuscation. (4) A tape of the highlights of the O.J. trial to illustrate the venality of lawyers and the breakdown of the criminal justice system. (5) A can of red meat that is not fat free.

lexx: Good choices, and a good note on which to end. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us, Mr. Adler.

ADLER: My pleasure.

Visit Warren Adler's website here.