I think he [Gary Fisketjon, editor] is way too much of a stickler about syntax and grammar. I like the way my narrators talk. I know it’s not proper syntax or grammar. But it’s not supposed to be. My narrators aren’t English professors, and I don’t want them to sound like they are.
My personal experiences aside, paranoia serves an important technical function in my books. In a novel that isn’t exactly plot-driven, which you could argue is most of my novels, you need a sense of mystery, tension, menace, whatever it is, to keep it driving forward. What’s around the corner? What’s going on in the hills? Who’s behind the wheel of that black Mercedes with the tinted windows?
In Less Than Zero, where very little seems to be happening for most of the book, what keeps the reader engaged? Not a riveting plot certainly, since there’s no plot until the last fifth of the novel. Not depth of character, since these characters seem to have no depth. What keeps the reader engaged is, probably, a gradually intensifying sense of dread.
