Bookforum talks with James Lasdun
In his new book, Give Me Everything You Have, James Lasdun chronicles the ordeal he suffered at the hands of an obsessive former student. "The project began as an act of self-protection," says Lasdun, "but it didn’t work, because I kept sounding like a crazy person. How do you write a story that is so bizarre and in which you are a major participant without sounding crazy?"
James Lasdun was born in London in 1958, the son of the prominent British architect Denys Lasdun. He made his literary debut in 1985 with the short story collection The Silver Age, and in the years since he has published three additional short-story collections, four volumes of poetry, and two novels—2002's The Horned Man and 2005's Seven Lies, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Lasdun moved to the United States in 1986 and has taught creative writing at Princeton, NYU, and Columbia University, among other institutions. His latest release, Give Me Everything You Have: On Being