Changes

David Vann: I’ve never imagined readers, and in fact I didn’t have any for a very long time. For twelve years, I couldn’t get my first book of fiction, ]][[Legend of a Suicide|Legend of a Suicide]], published. I also don’t show my manuscript to anyone until it’s done. My agents are the first to see it, and the first draft is almost exactly the same as what’s published. For [[Caribou Island by David Vann|Caribou Island]], I added seven or eight paragraphs of background information about Irene, at the request of my editor, and that was a very good suggestion but less than a thousand words. No scene has been cut or added or switched in order. And for [[Dirt by David Vann|Dirt]], I added only two or three short paragraphs in revision, in order to make several connections. For the next novel, Goat Mountain, which will be published in 2013, there are no revisions at all. What I like about this is that readers experience the same dream that I do, all one piece, for better or worse. And it gives me great pleasure to hear from readers, and especially to find that someone in Croatia understands my work better than most readers in the US, for instance. I love that. But I can’t imagine thinking of a reader when I write.