What Closes on Saturday Night: A Conversation With Neal Pollack
Neal Pollack has written ten bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction that have been published in multiple languages around the world. He published his first book, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, as the inaugural volume in Dave Eggers’ McSweeneys book imprint, and started satirically calling himself The Greatest Living American Writer. Pollack has been a columnist for Vanity Fair, The New York Press, Nerve.com, Epicurious, and Parents.com, among others. Pollack is also the host, with his 14-year-old son Elijah, of Extra Credit, a documentary-style series on Audible.com where Pollack tries to teach Elijah dubious lessons that he won’t get in school. He spoke with editor Katie Burgess by email.
Katie Burgess: I took a satire workshop from you years ago, and I remember the first thing you did was explain the difference between satire and humor. “Satire comes from a place of rage,” I believe is how you put it. A lot of people use the terms interchangeably, though. What exactly makes satire distinct from humor?
Neal Pollack: Humor tends to be lighter, to make fun of personal or societal foibles. Or sometimes it’s just absurd. Satire usually has some sort of political purpose or social-change agenda. It’s the difference between say, The Colbert Report and Steve Carell’s “Produce Pete” character. Or the difference between the comedy of Jeff Foxworthy and South Park. The danger with satire is that the agenda can overcome the comedy. It can be didactic. That’s not a problem with humor, which only has to prove whether it’s funny or not funny.
KB: Malcom Gladwell has spoken about the “Satire Paradox,” the idea that sometimes the intended targets of satire might actually enjoy their portrayal, or find their views reinforced by it. Would you agree that this is a common problem? Is satire ineffective if those being mocked embrace the mockery?
NP: I don’t think that’s the case. Donald Trump became President precisely because he felt disrespected by Obama at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. Satire can be effective, it just might not always have the result that people desire. There’s a lot of people satirizing the left right now, and the left does not like to be mocked. They can dish it out, but they cannot take it.
KB: There’s been a lot of concern since the 2016 election about how many people can’t tell the difference between real news, fake news, and satire. Is it the satirist’s responsibility to worry about whether or not people understand their work?
NP: No, the satirist’s job, if you can actually find work doing satire, is to make satire. They won’t keep that job for long, though. Satire, some Broadway wit once said, is what closes on Saturday night.
KB: In a 2012 interview with Bookslut you discuss your novel Jewball and what it was like to write the anti-Semitic characters, saying, “Those guys, it was not too challenging to write them because they were such bumbling fools in the States. These American fascists, they seemed threatening at the time, but at the end of the day, America’s ability to bring everything toward the middle kind of canceled those guys out, like it does now.” Do you think America still has that ability? Do you think the so-called “alt-right” will eventually go the way of the German-American Bund?
NP: I absolutely think that, and I think that, in many ways, they already have. They are vastly outnumbered at every public gathering. They are to be ridiculed and pelted with tomatoes, and so are the people who believe that these alt-right morons are somehow the coming of the next Reich. People need to grow a spine.
KB: You’ve written in a wide variety of genres — satire, mystery, memoir, sci-fi, romcom — do you find that your fans are mostly willing to follow you from one project to the next, or do you have a lot of people going, “Why won’t you do another Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature?” What are you working on right now?
NP: I just finished an education podcast, called Extra Credit, which I co-host with my teenage son on Audible. I have a variety of freelance venues. And I have some projects that I’m working on that I can’t discuss right now. Also, I’m about to put out a new album of music that will certainly be unpopular.
KB: You wrote a memoir, Stretch, about your yoga practice. How does yoga help your creative process?
NP: It clears my mind, relaxes my body, and allows me to exist in the present moment. Anything that can help a writer be less neurotic, even for an hour, is useful.
KB: How does your training as a journalist inform your other writing?
NP: Journalism trained me to write crisp, clear sentences, how to deploy dialogue, and how to pace a scene. These are all key elements to good writing. Fortunately, with fiction, there’s no one calling you up to tell you that you got the facts wrong.
KB: You host Extra Credit with your son, Elijah, and you’ve described him as your “comedy partner.” How do you raise a kid who still wants to hang out with you once he’s a teenager? (This is a completely selfish question, since I have a toddler, and whenever I see older kids who seem to like their parents, I want to know how it’s done.)
NP: The best way to make sure your kid wants to hang out with you is to provide financial incentive. Elijah got paid for Extra Credit, so that gave us some father-son time on the clock. If you’re not getting paid, then do something that your kid wants to do, make sure they’re fed, and hope they want to tag along.
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