I met you briefly a few times before the whole controversy in 1998, and noticed in the film how Hayden Christensen captured some of your mannerisms. Did you meet with him?

He never sought me out, and I've never spoken to him. Well, it's possible he wrote some letter or something. I haven't always been the easiest person to seek out.

But yeah, there are some mannerisms that were creepy to see. The detail, and it's a minor, almost irrelevant detail, but the moment in the office when he didn't have his shoes on? I tend to take my shoes off in offices. It was a moment I was taken aback by.

There was another scene I wanted to ask you about. Glass -- well, you -- is telling one of his colleagues about how you went out with some male Washington Post reporter, and was shocked when he kissed you; or, more precisely, when he stuck his tongue down your throat. Why do you think they put that scene in the movie?

I don't know why they put that in the movie.

Was it based on reality?

There was an incident earlier in my career in which a gay reporter from another publication seemed to be interested in me. So I assume that's what it was.

The impression it gave -- an impression I know others shared about you at the time -- was that you were a sort of cipher. People don't know who -- or what -- you were. A fair characterization?

I think I didn't have a great understanding of who I was, otherwise I would have been more honest with myself, and therefore wouldn't have been lying. So to the extent I was a cipher to myself, I was a cipher to others as well.

You suggest as much in the book, though, too. There are a few similarly jarring moments. I'm thinking about the time you -- or, rather, the Steve in the novel -- puts on copious amounts of women's makeup to get in the character of a woman he was making up for one of his stories. Another time, Steve is stuck wearing his girlfriend's underwear because he doesn't have any of his own. Any freshman lit student would highlight these passages and write "identity confusion," or "gender confusion," in the margins.

I think what the book is trying to communicate is that the narrator is trying to become a fictional character, a character he's not. And I don't mean it in just a literal meaning; he's going through a troubled period in his life where he is trying to figure out who he is.

Andrew Sullivan once told me that during your job interview for TNR, he asked you what, aside from politics, you were interested in, and you blurted out, "Show tunes!" He says he wondered later if it was true, or just a way to try to insinuate yourself with a gay man -- though he's quick to point out he doesn't like show tunes.

I know virtually nothing about music. I don't really own CDs. My father loved show tunes, and I was involved in musicals in high school. I was not playing to the choir. It's about the only music that I know anything about.

So it's true, then. But what sort of show tunes?

I used to run at the gym to show tunes. What I liked about them is that there was a long narrative you could follow. I have run in the past to "Les Miz."

Do you still think of yourself as a cipher?

I've had a great deal of therapy. I feel I understand myself -- and as part of that, understand the pain I've caused others -- a great deal more.

But do you understand why you did what you did? The real weakness in the movie -- and reviewers have pointed out, in your book as well -- is that ultimately it doesn't explain why you did it?

I think that's absent in the movie.

But it is in the book, too, right? "The Fabulist" sort of suggests that Steve is under enormous pressure, presumably social but also from his family. Then later, we meet Steve's family, and they seem genuinely supportive and warm.

I think an important point there, and maybe it's a point that wasn't clear, is that ... other people have asked me this, "Did your parents make you do this." And the answer is no. I think my parents have done nothing wrong here, and were proud of me. Parental pressure did not lead me to do what I did. That doesn't mean I haven't accused them, wrongly, at times.

Do you think you do so in the book?

Accuse my parents? Well, I think the narrator, and let me be clear it's not me, I don't think he accuses his parents. I think he has a warm relationship with his parents, and he doesn't always understand them.

So when you say you have accused them, do you mean you, or the Steve in the book?

I'm saying in real life. I've accused my parents in real life.

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