Q&A: Sloane Crosley, American author and essayist, 44

American author and essayist Sloane Crosley on optimism, the universal fear of running into an ex, and the one essential ingredient in the creative process.

Author Sloane Crosley. Picture: DeSean McClinton

Across three essay collections and two novels, you’ve honed a signature brand of wry observational humour. Has living in New York City sharpened your cynicism? I have never called anywhere home except for New York. This is like asking a twin what it’s like to be a twin. But I will say that being genuine, hopeful or even earnest (in small doses) is not the antithesis of cynicism and it’s more what New York’s about. Optimists cock their head at everything. Optimists watch. Because we have hope. Because we are looking for a way through to something delightful.

Your new novel, Cult Classic, confronts the universal fear of running into your ex, while also sending up our surveillance culture. Do you really think big tech will cause society’s downfall? I’m sorry, do we not think society is already drunk and on the floor?

Fair point. You were a publicist at Random House when your first book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, hit the New York Times bestseller list. What did the publishing industry teach you about writing books? Know what you’rewriting and once you know it, protect it, both while you’re writing and while you’re promoting the book. I like to think I have a decent sense of it myself. Cult Classic is not a 600-page novel about three generations of a Turkish political family, nor is it a bobble-headed book about dating apps.

What are you working on now? I have my first full-length non-fiction book out in early 2024 called Grief Is for People. It’s mostly about the suicide of one of my closest friends in 2019. It’s also about a burglary, New York, Covid, the death of a way of life, the pains of the arts industry, and the total insanity of grief. It’s a comedy.

David Sedaris and Nick Hornby are fans. Have they ever given you advice on writing humour? I have never met Nick in person, though obviously I’m a fan, but David I have met several times. He’s one of the most generous, supportive and wonderful people and I only hope that someone who works with him has his name on Google Alert because I can’t say enough nice things about him. He has never given me advice but once The Village Voice interviewed us together. The reporter asked us the same question – “What would you say your book is about?” – and I had to go first. I gave this long-winded song and dance, teasing out the themes and the top notes. And then David went. And he said, “Well, that’s not really for me to say, it’s for a reader to say.” I think about that a lot: You wrote the book, that’s enough.

What do you consider essential to the creative process? Sleep. Oh my God, sleep. Is that such a boring answer? Alas, it’s the answer. Lack of it feels like brain damage. Without it, I have word retrieval problems, I can’t get started, I’m easily distracted and, what’s worse, my body will come for it like a vigilante and make me take a too-long nap in the middle of the day. [Sleep deprivation] mimics depression, and “a little-dab-will-do-ya” when it comes to mixing creativity and depression.

Will we see the film version of Cult Classic soon? In the words of Cousin Greg from Succession: If it is to be said, so it be – so it is.

Sloane Crosley appears at Adelaide Writers’ Week on March 7 and 8; The Wheeler Centre, Melbourne, on March 9; and the All About Women festival at Sydney Opera House on March 12.