And Joyce Carroll Oates is one of the most incredible writers of all time.

When I was in my 20s and really learning how to write, I read her all the time.

So it was an honor to go to her house and talk to her about writing.

I mean, you've done some non-fiction that is just as visual as your fiction and

you know equally sort of powerful in terms of storytelling. I think back definitely to the work you did about Mike Tyson.

Oh right. Which is so powerful and it leaps off the page with imagery and there's a tough field because

tons of people were writing about Tyson and still you had a very unique take and a unique

approach to the subject.

Well I felt that I really understood him very well and I was writing about him before

the before most people were because I was writing about him before he wanted his

title his title when he was training for the fight with Trevor Burbick which isn't I think

was October in 1986 but I had known him before that and I knew his manager.

So by the time most people were writing about him,

he was already almost overexposed. You know, there weren't not that many new things to say about him.

He was Iron Mike for a while. He went through these different phases.

He had such a actually really short career at the top, you know, his peak didn't last very long. Yeah, It's sort of a comet.

Yeah, who would have thought so?

But he was sort of a victim, I think.

I mean, is it, what was the right was the thing that made that subject so

fertile for you well it was the post-ali era, and everybody was waiting like for the next, you know, Messiah or something.

And so he started being noticed in upstate New York. He was out of Catskill, New York.

And he would start hearing, you know, a room or a really wonderful young rising heavyweight. And it was kind of a glimmer and

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