DONALD BARTHELME
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possible), but could use aspects of his achievement.
McCaffery:
One of your most evident abilities is your gift at
mimicking a wide range of styles, jargons, and lingoes. Where do
these voices come from?
Barthelme:
I listen to people talk, and I read. I doubt that there has
ever been more jargon and cant of various professions and semi–
professions than there is today. I remember being amazed when I
was in basic training, which was back in the early fifties, that
people could make sentences in which the word
fucking
was used
three times or even five times.
McCaffery :
How did your relationship with the
New Yorker
begin?
Barthelme:
I sent them something in the mail and they accepted it.
Agented probably by a nine-cent stamp. Also, once in a while
when I was low on cash I'd write something for certain strange
magazines - the names I don't even remember. Names like
Dasher
and
Thug.
I do remember picking up five hundred bucks or
something per piece . I did that a few times. Kind of gory, or even
Gorey, fiction.
McCaffery:
Have any of these things ever resurfaced?
Barthelme:
No. Nor shall they ever.
McCaffery:
It wasn't long before the
New Yorker
began publishing a
story of yours almost every month . You didn't develop a specific
understanding with them about regularly accepting your work?
Barthelme:
I had moved to New York to work with Tom and Harold
doing
Location,
and since I was only working half-time on the
magazine, I had more time to write fiction. I had and have what
they call a first-reading agreement.
McCaffery :
Have you had a specific editor working with you at the
New Yorker?
Barthelme:
Yes, Roger Angell.
McCaffery :
Do your stories usually require much in the way of editing?
Barthelme:
Roger makes very few changes.
If
he and the magazine
don't like a piece that I've written, they'll turn it down. The
magazine sometimes turns down a piece I don't think should be
turned down - but what else can I think? Roger is a wonderful
editor, and if he objects to something in a story, he's probably
right. He's very sensitive about the editing process, which makes it
a pleasure.
McCaffery:
Do you see yourself working out of some kind of
New
Yorker
tradition?
Barthelme:
The magazine in recent years has been very catholic. Any-
