Judith Guest talks about “the terror of chance,” taking what you want, manufacturing religion, the problem with Republicans ... and how a 40-year-old author with three kids and no agent made it big
That last bit about making it big? Judith Guest would never say that. She’s way too humble. But it’s true, she made it big. Really big. And she did talk about the complexities of that reality with me twenty years ago. Since I recently revisited my twenty-year-old interview with Louise Erdrich, I figured I should also revisit that long, intimate day I spent in Guest’s Edina sunroom talking about her lengthy and complicated writing career, including the surprising challenges that came with the instant literary stardom she experienced after Ordinary People.
Reliving that amazing afternoon feels delicious. It also feels strange, because as the shadows grew longer that day, Guest finally spoke—and tenderly—about her then novel-in-progress, which she’d given the working title White in the Moon. It was to be a followup to The Tarnished Eye, her fifth novel, which had just come out that year. But Guest, who is now 86 years old, hasn’t published any new novels since 2004 (under the title Whit…