Mary Roach

Interviewed by Ralph Spinelli

A former Salon.com columnist, Mary Roach writes the humor column “My Planet” in Reader’s Digest.  Her work has also appeared in GQ, Wired, Vogue, Outside, Discover, and The New York Times Magazine.  Her New York Times bestselling book, STIFF: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers was a Best Books of 2003 selection by Entertainment Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Seattle Times, and NPR’s “Science Friday,” among others.  Her new book, Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, will be published by Norton in October 2005.  She lives in San Francisco.

RS: I read a quote from you that says, “every sentence has to earn its keep.”

MR: What I meant by that is, I think you have to be really hard on your prose.  If it’s not funny or unique in some way, get rid of it.  I have high standards, if the sentence does not advance the story or add humor, then it’s out of there.

RS: So, your statement, “Take the I or me out” applies the same weight?

MR: Whenever I can I try to take I or me out.  There’s nothing wrong with having I or me, but I just challenge myself.

RS: Because of some of the subject matter of STIFF, in which you observe the medical uses of dead human bodies, I wonder if you would ever consider having a face-lift?

MR: If they ever perfected it where you are not so sore and swollen afterwards and the price comes down, I will.

RS: The opening scene in your book describes what happens when you observed plastic surgeons working with forty human heads in a facial anatomy refresher course.  You made the strikingly funny distinction that a human head compares in size and weight to a roaster chicken.  How did you determine the human head is about the size of a chicken?

MR: I went into my local Safeway and I got a glimpse of the chickens all lined up like the heads were in the medical schools.  I can’t vouch for the size of a head.  I didn’t weigh one.  They were attached to a body.  They are smaller than a turkey and larger than a broiler.  They’re about the size of a roaster.

RS: Did you always want to be a writer?

MR: No!  I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do with my life.  I went to college and had a wonderful time, went to a lot of parties and possibly learned a few things.

RS: And again, where did you go to college?

MR: Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  I never gave any thought to my career, which was really stupid.  I was a young idiot.  I came out here to San Francisco because I heard it was cool, and it is.  I had no job, so I picked up what I could, editing, copy editing, temp work, catering, whatever I could find.  One day I wrote a piece for “The Sunday Punch,” a section of the Chronicle.  It was a funny little list of ways to upset the IRS and they ran it.  I thought, that’s easy, maybe I’ll do some writing.    I kept writing for the “Punch” and sent a query to the Sunday magazine Image.  They gave me the assignment.  I started writing for them part-time and working part-time.

RS: What kind of work were you doing by then?

MR: Public relations, writing press releases for the zoo.  I got into writing very gradually, I had no grand plan.  I had no compulsion or need to be a writer.

RS: At what stage of all that did you discover your voice?

MR: From the beginning.  In fact, when I look back at some of those first pieces, I would still use them as clips.  I think some of those are better than things I did in my mid-career.

RS: When did you realize you could make a living writing?

MR: I had been writing part-time for about a year.  The zoo wanted me to come on full-time.  I had to decide to go with the zoo or write full-time.  I was very anxious, I didn’t know if I could make a living.  It was about a year before I was up to speed and things were rolling along.  The longer you do it the easier it gets, the more contacts you make and the more confidence you have.

RS: Is that when you started contacting magazines?

MR: Well, what happened, you know I wrote for image and that was a cold query I had never written for them and she said yes.  I probably wrote fifty pieces for them.  Then an editor for them left and went to a magazine called Hipocrates, about health and medicine.  It was a very good magazine and they won a lot of awards.  She contacted me and I wrote for them for about ten years.  They sent me all over the world; they let me have a voice.

RS: How long after you started were you able to realize you could make your living doing this?

MR: About a year, maybe two years I was able to not do commercial writing and do the kind of things I like to write.

RS: How extensive a book tour did you do with STIFF?

MR: The paperback tour was eight or nine cities.  Hardback was six cities.  I did a lot of radio.  I enjoy doing radio.  The first three I was nervous.  Now I love it.  They call at six in the morning from the East coast and I give interviews sitting in bed in my underpants.         

RS: When you were in college, you were an English Major?

MR: No! No! I was a Psychology Major, only because.   I would’ve been an English Major, but I wanted to go to London in my Junior year with a transfer program.  The English department was very picky, you had to take the courses at Wesleyan and the Psych department said that looks fine, you can take psychology courses there in London.  I became a Psych major.  I wanted to travel. 

RS: What have you done, other than sitting down and writing, to sharpen your skills as a writer?

MR: Reading other writers, particularly for humor.  I love Dave Barry.  It works by shaming me into working harder.  I read writers that I admire, but not writers that I know I could never be like.  Just writers I can strive to be as good as.  But, I’ve never taken classes.

RS: I admire your sense of humor.  I respect your ability to respect your subject matter and yet season your work with your humor.

MR: I manage to get a line in now and then.  As far as respect of subject matter, I imagine everyone that has ever lost anyone looking over my shoulder.  I didn’t want this to be a book where anyone who has lost a loved one would be upset or offended.  I’ve lost both my parents.  I was my own barometer.

RS: I read a quote from you that states, “each anecdote should serve a point.”

MR: Sometimes I read work of students and the anecdotes are funny, but there’s not really a reason for them to be there.  The essay has to have a point and the anecdote has to support the point.  But, I frequently ignore my own advice and throw in anecdotes that don’t support the point.

RS: Speaking of advice, if you had some for young writers what would it be?

MR: If you want to get going in magazines, go to one of those magazine stands that has tons of magazines.  Find one where you can picture where your piece would fit.  I hear from editors often people send a piece or a query out and blanket it, without having read the magazine.  The writer needs to be familiar with the magazine or the departments.  You really need to know, not just what magazine, but what part of the magazine.  Do they ever run first person?  Find one you feel is a good fit for you and write a story for that magazine.  It’s very hard to place an already written piece.  It makes sense to query first.

RS: Of all the magazines you’ve written for, which one do you have the best relationship with?

MR: Well, the only one I’m writing for now is Reader’s Digest.  I still have that column.  It used to be Salon.  They were kind of irreverent, kind of funny, not afraid of strange subject matter. They were very open-minded and hands off with me.  That was a great fit.  I wrote for them for two years, then that section was cut.  That was the end of that.

RS: When can we expect another book?

MR: Actually, it’s complete.  It is scheduled to be out in 2005.  The working title is SPOOK.  It’s about the search of scientific evidence of life after death.