Getting Back to Storytelling

John Banville, the Irish literary novelist whose most recent book, Christine Falls, was published under the pseudonym “Benjamin Black,” interviews his alter ego in a Newsweek magazine exclusive. It’s an interesting approach, but might have been still more fun had the two Banville incarnations found themselves liking each other less. Read their exchange here.

Elsewhere on the Newsweek Web site, Malcolm Jones jointly interviews Banville and the witty and prolific American writer Donald E. Westlake (Ask the Parrot). Their topics including the use of pen names, crime fiction’s dominance of book bestseller lists, and whether cigarette smoking in acceptable in fiction any longer. That conversation can be found here.