the lonely road

Sparks pulls the one beside it off the shelf. “A Farewell to Arms, by Hemingway. Good stuff. That’s what I write,” he says, putting it back. “That’s what I write.”

Cormac McCarthy? “Horrible,” he says, looking at Blood Meridian. “This is probably the most pulpy, overwrought, melodramatic cowboy vs. Indians story ever written.”

Even hearing a passage about a sunset in which “the mountains in their blue islands stood footless in the void like floating temples” doesn’t sway him.

[ … ]

Sparks’ favorite tale of youth? “I think A Walk to Remember,” he says, citing his own novel. “That’s my version of a coming-of-age.” He pauses and adds: “You have to say To Kill a Mockingbird is an all-time classic.”

Any he thinks are overrated?

“I don’t like to say bad things about others.”

Except McCarthy? “He deserves it,” Spark says with a laugh.

Asked what he likes in his own genre, Sparks replies: “There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do.”