At one point I would read nothing that was not by the great American Jews - Saul Bellow, Philip Roth - which had a disastrous effect of making me think I needed to write the next great Jewish American novel. As a ginger-haired child in the West of Ireland, that didn't work out very well, as you can imagine.

Kevin Barry

Kevin Barry

American Child Disastrous Effect Great Great American Had Imagine Ireland Jewish Jews Making Me Needed Next Nothing Novel Out Philip Point Read Saul Think Very Well West Which Work Work Out Would Write You

Related Quotes

I was saving the name of 'Geisel' for the Great American Novel.

AmericanGreatGreat American

It used to be that the highest ambition of American novelists was to write 'the Great American Novel,' that great white whale of American fiction that would encompass all the American experience in one great book.

— Michael Korda

AmbitionAmericanAmerican Experience

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

— W. Somerset Maugham

AmericanBeenGreat

I had dreams, but I didn't have the sense that they would necessarily work out. They seemed very far-fetched.

— Greta Gerwig

DreamsHadNecessarily

My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties.

— Barry Manilow

AmericanEightiesGreat