Interviewing a Pulitzer Prize Winner

Saturday at Borders in Largo, Maryland I was the moderator in a colliquy with Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. Marie Arana, Washington Post Bookworld editor and herself a National Book Award finalist for her memoir American Chica, posed questions and teased Mr. Jones out of his shell. He's eccentric, sure. Monastic asa description for his life is an understatement. No furniture. A small, old TV. He takes the bus everywhere. Has the same apartment in DC he's rented for years. Yet now I know what it may have been like to light a clay pipe with Cooper and Melville, mix a mojito for Hemingway, swill some bourbon with Fitzgerald. Maybe share a coffee with Hughes, an uneasy yet forthwright couple of words with Wright in a cab? Or just a hug from Zora. When I show my grandchildren his books, the inevitable inscriptions on library walls, I can tell them with pride that I was among the lucky few in this life who got to share some words and a even a few laughs with a hero. The man grew up in abject poverty in the Nation's Capital. His mother couldn't read or write; she was a maid for five decades. I wish he was a hero to more folks, especially the young...