Studio 360, New York, 10 December 2010, 18 May 2012
Chris Adrian works by day as a pediatric oncologist, dealing with children's
cancer cases. As a recreation, he tells dark, fantastic stories drawing on his experience in the hospital, focusing on notions
of parenthood, family relationships and monstrosity. In this short interview he talked about his twin careers, interspersed
with extracts from his novel The Great Night read by Anne Marie Nest.
What emerged most tangibly from the interview was Adrian's commitment to both careers;
he did not believe that one provided respite from the other, but that they were intertwined. His hospital experiences helped
inspire the novels and vice versa. This capacity for multi-tasking stands in contrast to other novelists who combined their
craft with other careers, such as T. S. Eliot, who freely admitted that writing provided some kind of respite from the daily
grind of working for Faber and Faber in London.
Adrian came across as a modest person, who was grateful for the opportunities provided
by his twin careers. To date none of his books have been recorded in audiobook form - perhaps it's time for that omission
to be rectified.
