Jonathan Lethem

I reread John Barth's second novel, The End of the Road, last week, looking for traces of my own far-off inspiration; I'd first read the book six years earlier, before starting As She Climbed Across the Table, and I recalled it as an influence without particularly remembering how it had influenced me. Or exactly how much. Rereading it I was struck by how much I'd forgotten in almost every sense--the tone and texture of the book, as well as the plot, and how deeply it had reached into me and shaped the fiction I was about to write.