text: L.A. as 'Literary,' the Death of the Book, and Writing in PowerPoint: An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Jennifer Egan: LAist
  by Katherine Manderfield in Arts & Entertainment on May 10, 2011 12:00 AM
  Because technology was so integral to Goon Squad, what do you make of current worries about digitization and the future of publishing: do you think 'the death of the book' is a legitimate fear?
  They're entirely different. They connect, thematically, but the process is almost opposite. With journalism, I spend months trying to become briefly expert on one topic that lasts approximately ten minutes [laughs]. Once I have a crystallization of what I'm trying to understand, I write it quickly, trying to create a sound simulacrum of the real world, as I've discovered it to be. But with fiction, I'm trying to invent a world, which is much more inductive and the exploration has lots of dead-ends and blind alleys in which the writing itself reveals the world to me. But there's kind of a potential myopia about writing fiction when you're in your own head and your own world. It's nice to remember that there's a big world out there with massive problems and challenges and people who are dealing with all kinds of things and who couldn't care less about my fictional world. I find that heartening—it's like 'get out of your own head, your own world.' For me, the experience of writing fiction and nonfiction are so opposite, that they compliment each other almost perfectly.
  For more information about A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan's other books, and to see PowerPoint fiction in action, visit the author's website.