Mona Simpson
Mona Simpson
Mona Elizabeth Simpson is an American novelist. She has written six novels and is a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angelesand the Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth14 June 1957
CityGreen Bay, WI
CountryUnited States of America
children gave home kids large raising routines stayed together women
We go to college, live together or marry, and have kids - often with little more thought to the daily routines of raising children than our grandparents gave them, when women by and large stayed at home.
relationship
I've never had an exclusive relationship to a room where I write. I used to want one.
life love man met waiting
Even as a feminist, my whole life I'd been waiting for a man to love who could love me. For decades, I'd thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man, and he was my brother.
good hearts love vulnerable
Even more than we want good love for ourselves, we want it for our children, those vulnerable satellites of our hearts that we send, unsteady, into the world.
deeply draw felt powerful prince
I've never felt powerful enough to write a true political novel, or deeply knowledgeable enough to draw a character like, say, Tolstoy's Prince Kutuzov.
authentic discussion engaged national politics
We're all looking for an authentic way to be engaged in the community, engaged in politics, engaged in national discussion - and so, we're clunky. We're all clunky. But it's better than not doing it.
accidental decency deeply generosity impulses inside meaningful odd particular power powerful reveal scenes specific subtle suppose time transcend
I suppose 'My Hollywood' is only as politically meaningful as it is deeply inside the least powerful of its characters. I wanted it to reveal scenes of subtle exploitation, odd instances of accidental power and challenges to decency specific to its time, but also impulses of generosity that transcend our particular era's messes.
cultural love people
We have all these cultural assumptions about love. People get hurt, and we say, 'Oh, it's no one's fault.'
chair conflict home material needs sitting time
If a mother is sitting in a chair at the office, someone needs to be at home with her child. In some cases, that is a father. Much of the time, the material manifestation of the conflict is a nanny.
again both daydream default eventually longer met needed relationship reunion throughout time
I eventually made the reunion with my father that I'd used as a default daydream throughout my childhood, but by then, we'd both outgrown the only relationship we could have had to each other. I was over 30 by the time I met him again and no longer needed a father.
although came cared deal family foods great grew money original single stores
I grew up with a single mother, and although we didn't have a lot of money, she cared a great deal about what we ate. We were the original health-food family. We shopped at what were called health-food stores before Whole Foods - everything came from bins.
grew imagined knew looked poor single
I grew up as an only child with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif.
began continued goes pacific position run series slightly sold thus until
My first job was to run a concessions cart. Later, I found a position at the Pacific Film Archive. Thus began a long series of jobs, each one slightly better than the last, that continued for a decade, until I sold my first novel, and still goes on, even now.
affluent cream felt job steady worked
I felt like any other American kid. I already worked at a steady job as an ice cream scooper, but I didn't feel less in any way than my more affluent friends from school.