A reclusive writing star A Kotzwinkle bibliography drops in, briefly, on Portland illiam Kotzwinkle (E.T., the script) puts Maine, also his secret home, on a reading tour Brad Lemley ff Writer o, William Kotzwinkle, how are S you enjoying this book tour? is like being tied to a stake, burned and beheaded." Are you looking forward to r next one? 'I will never do this again. You are bably getting the last interview with liam Kotzwinkle that will ever take ce." And about your home in Maine. Where is The Firemen, 1969 precisely? The Ship That Came Down the 'We are not going to put that in Gutter, 1970 article, OK? That was a precondition of Elephant Boy, 1970 S interview. If they did not tell you that, y were sadly mistaken." The Return of Crazy Horse, 1971. The Day the Gang Got Rich, om the land of imagination 1970 Elephant Bangs Train and Other Having thus put Kotzwinkle at ease, the Stories, 1971 erviewer probes deeper. The Oldest Man and Other So, Bill, you are a prolific writer: Timeless Tales, 1971 re than 30 books including "The Hermes 3000, 1972 dnight Examiner," (Houghton Mif- Seymour Lawrence, $17.95) which is The Supreme, Superb, Exalted object of this tour. Also, four plays, and Delightful, One and Only eral screenplays, hundreds of short Magic Building, 1973 ries. Where do they come from? Up the Alley with Jack and Joe, "The genesis is the imagination. The 1974 agination is a dimension, a land, it's a Nightbook, 1974 1 place. It is the astral kingdom, it goes forever. I am not generating these The Fan Man, 1974 ages, they are being generated within Swimmer in the Secret Sea, 1975 . I have to categorize them, assist Doctor Rat, 1976 m, lend all my mental energy to them, The Leopard's Tooth, 1976 I am defining a land that is already re." Fata Morgana, 1977 As he spoke these words, Kotzwinkle The Nap Master, 1978 S transformed. At one moment he was an Herr Nightingale and the Satin hausted, rumpled, annoyed victim of Woman, 1978 erminable book signings, and looked The Ants Who Took Away Time, aller and grayer than his book jacket 1979 otographs suggest. He was ending a ee-week, coast-to-coast marathon of Dream of Dark Harbor, 1979 ok-hawking, and staring dejectedly at the Jack in the Box, 1980 nnant of an English muffin in the lounge Christmas at Fontaine's, 1982 he Portland Jetport. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, 1982 Then, suddenly, he had become what Great World Circus, 1983 book reviewers call him: the gifted d, the natural writer, the conjurer who Queen of Swords, 1984 nmons the sublime from the ridiculous. Trouble in Bugland, 1984 The Book of the Green Plant, e consummate storyteller 1985 In short, Kotzwinkle is the consummate Seduction in Berlin, 1985 Brad Lemley photos ryteller who is consumed by the stories William Kotzwinkle gives a reading from his latest book, "The The World IS BIG and I'm So tells. He is a man far more comfortable Midnight Examiner," at Raffle's Cafe Bookstore in Portland. The Small, 1986 scribing the landscape of the imagination reading closed out a three-week national tour. Hearts of Wood, 1986 n that of his home in - this is as specific The Jewel of the Moon, 1986 he'l be - coastal Maine. Coaxing biographical information from The Exile, 1987 n is tough, but not quite impossible. Born impaled. In the middle of his eight-year retreat he The Midnight Examiner, 1989 years ago in Scranton, Pa., he is a Kotzwinkle loved it all. "I mean, if you wrote "The Fan Man," a comic novel of a aduate of Pennsylvania State University. write 'Demented Dad Pickles Progeny or filthy, lecherous, drug-addled, larcenous, is is all the detail he'll supply about the Tribal Custom Dictated My Wife Be Veiled lovable musician and his attempt to assem- st half of his life, but Ken Rosen, head of From Birth, Too Late I Realized Her Head ble an all-girl choir in the Bowery. The book Came To A Point,' then pretty soon you he says. He wrote the story for "Nightmare e English Department at the University of became a classic among college students, on Elm St., Part 4." He wrote a screenplay uthern Maine, was a classmate back then realize that you can write anything." and remains in print today. d recalls that Kotzwinkle "left for about a Kotzwinkle says higher-budget tabloids based on his novel, "Jack in the Box," which Describing the enduring appeal of a ar to join Kerouac and the beatniks in sometimes make excursions into the truth, begins filming in August. He has also grease-encrusted, rat-faced New York psy- but his paper could not pay for real report- adapted his 1982 novel, "Christmas at Fon- W York. He was always dedicated to cho, Kotzwinkle speculates that "he ap- taine's,' as a teleplay. It will run on e literary life." ers. peals to that part of all of us that resisted NBC "sometime in 1990.' After returning to graduate, Kotzwinkle "We made up every single word. There toilet training." nt to New York City, directed and acted was not one story we ever ran that had the In the early 1980s, the couple moved to Kotzwinkle is fidgeting. This is too real, an underground film, and somehow slightest basis in fact." Maine and Kotzwinkle got a call from too biographical. und up as a writer for a tabloid newspa- Did he really write "Man Has Eel director Stephen Spielberg. r. It was a vein of experience he mined 25 Living In His Intestine"? "He was a 'Fan Man' fan," and wanted "We're all done, Brad. Ask your big ars later in "The Midnight Examiner." "I wrote that too." Kotzwinkle to write a novelization for one question." e tale of a hapless troupe of tabloid Around 1970, he married the novelist of his upcoming films. Kotzwinkle flew to Why, exactly, does this interviewing cks who run afoul of, and eventually Elizabeth Gundy. They retreated to an Los Angeles and read the script for "E.T., business bother you so much? nquish, a social-climbing mafioso. abandoned 200-acre farm in New Bruns- the Extra-Terrestrial." "It was great training as a writer," he wick, where "we raised our own food and knew at once how wonderful it was," "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Kahn ys of his 15-month stint which took place learned to live in the wilderness." Here, he he says. Idid not sign on as a hack, I signed appeared to Coleridge one day. He makes omewhere in the '60s." also learned to write novels, at about a on as an artist, and I did it as carefully as I no denial of it, it appeared to him one day. He wrote stories about romantic cou- two-per-year clip. knew how." In the midst of this magnificent transmis- ings of Hollywood stars based on the But though he is prolific, he is far While critics generally regard noveliza- sion, the person from Porlock arrived to rtboard system. On one wall, his editor from predictable. His books have no com- tions of popular movies as schlock, this one knock on Coleridge's door, break his con- d posted photos of leading male stars, mon thread: some are hilarious, some are was warmly received. It sold 3 million co- centration and end his dream of the stately d on another, leading female stars. The poignant tear-jerkers, one is written in pies, and was the biggest-selling book of pleasure dome. The problem is that, in itor would close his eyes, throw a verse and one, "The Great World Circus," 1982. the midst of our imaginations, we are rt at each wall, and have Kotzwinkle is, according to one reviewer, a "fairly That trip forged a Hollywood connection always being awakened by the person from ite the torrid tale of the burning love indigestible blend of fantasy, legend, mys- that has kept Kotzwinkle busy. Porlock. My fight is to keep the door tween the stars whose pictures were ticism and God knows what else. "I love films, I love working on films," closed."