NYMag's Interview with Ann Patchett

Her new novel Whistler is out today. When was the last time you reread your first book? I’ve never reread my first. Very few authors reread their work. That’s what I’ve come to learn. I reread Bel Canto last year because I did a hand-annotated version of it, and it was fascinating. My takeaways: way too many adjectives. If I could describe something really brilliantly once, I went ahead and described it three times. And every time a beautiful woman walked in the room, I talked about how her hair smelled. It happened six times in the novel. Appalling. I’m dead. #