Was the character of Morris modeled on any particular male novelists–or a combination of actual novelists?
I tagged Philip Roth a number of times while creating this character. Aspects of Roth’s life create a kind of scaffolding for the story. Richard Morris lives in Connecticut and New York City, as does Roth. He is single, is Jewish, has “issues” with is father, loves/hates women. But the character is not based on Roth, because Roth is much more successful than Morris. And the story itself has nothing to do with Roth’s life. Ultimately, Morris is a composite of most successful writers: he is not successful enough, as far as he is concerned. Morris’ artistic trajectory is based, to a large degree, on luck. He’s discovered and becomes a literary star at a young age…then falls out of favor later in his career…and then returns to the spotlight thanks to a late-in-the-day positive review. His stardom seems to wax and wane, somewhat arbitrarily. So my question is: what’s the luckiest thing that ever happened to Eric Bogosian? The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was meeting my wife,
