Peter asked Michael Tolkin:

If you had to put yourself in a category or genre of writer, what would it be? Are the writers in that category the biggest influences on your prose, tv and film work?

Michael Tolkin I just found this question so I apologize for the delay. The two novelists I took as my literary parents are James M Cain and Patricia Highsmith. I discovered them when I was around thirty, and they gave me the inspiration and confidence to write my own books. The Player is most directly a product of the two. I had the privilege of a month at Yaddo, the artists retreat in upstate New York, and my room there had the desk and rug Highsmith gave to Yaddo in her will. I like books with a well modulated perversity, and I find little to inspire me in best selling literary fiction. My script work... some combination of Fellini, Ford, Fassbinder -- yes, any filmmaker whose name begins with F... Ford Coppola, Fpielberg... ---- this year, the scripts that impressed me the most (made me itchy to be that good) were The Disaster Artist I, Tonya, Killing of a Sacred Deer.

flag