Dan Wakefield Biography

I believe in the novel as story, entertainment, and communication—as if those elements could be separated! One of my college English professors defined the novel as "how it was with a group of people." I believe it is that and more. I want my novels to convey interior as well as social truth. I want them to enable readers to appreciate how other people felt, to make connections among human beings in all their diversity and in their alikeness as well. I love it when readers recognize some aspect of themselves in one of my characters and thus feel "I am not the only one!" who experienced some particular type of pain or joy. I try to write the way my characters think, the way they would express themselves, and I fear this attempt to be "plain" and open is sometimes misconstrued as an inability to write in a more self-consciously "literary" style. So be it. My aim is to convey the perception of the people I write about. I write about people I love, and in so doing I wish to honor them and celebrate our common humanity.

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