John Sayles Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

In an extended interview with The Rumpus, John Sayles examines the process of creating authentic characters

John Sayles is a force of nature, a do-it-yourself renaissance man - director, actor, screenwriter, script doctor, novelist. As far as we know, he wasn't part of the Navy Seal Team 6 that nabbed Bin Laden, but his boundless creative energy and narrative marksmanship, not to mention his longevity, put him squarely in a most elite squad of storytellers. Melville, Whitman, Mark Twain, Robert Altman: like the greatest American originals, Sayles has crossed genres and warped minds for three decades now, unleashing classics such as Return of the Secaucus Seven, Matewan, Eight Men Out, The Secret of Roan Inish, Lone Star, and Sunshine State on the silver screen, and the National Book Award-nominated Union Dues and Los Gusanos, two heavyweight novels that could duke it out with just about any other contemporary work of fiction.

Now Sayles has unveiled his most ambitious project to date in any genre, A Moment In the Sun, a bloody, brilliant, nearly 1,000 page globetrotting epic set at the turn of the last century, a time not so different from our own, it turns out.

John recently took time out of his very busy schedule to talk to The Rumpus a block or so from New York's Port Authority. He had to embark on a cross-country road trip ...