David Rakoff

It's an interesting piece. While reading it, I felt a certain interventionist concern for you. You are such an urban being. I became worried that you seemed to be buying into the whole back-to-nature/survivalist training you were undergoing.

The thing that really appealed to me was the stuff you got to make and do. It's like arts and crafts, but the stakes are life and death. I enjoyed making the things in the wilderness. I found that kind of mastery, that sort of dexterity, is something that really appeals to me; I like to make stuff. I'm handy that way.

There's a certain challenge such groups like to present, along the lines of "If left on your own out in the wilderness, would you survive?" My answer is no, I wouldn't, and I couldn't care less. If society suddenly breaks down, and it's survival of the fittest, I'm prepared to throw in the towel.

That's the thing. There are so many other things that would lead up to such a societal breakdown -- the looting, the pillaging, whatever. You'd be dead anyway. It's very rare to be suddenly and hermetically placed in a full survival situation. It's pure child's play, a boy's fantasy.

You grew up in Toronto, a cosmopolitan, cultured city in its own right. So what is it that brought you to New York? And what keeps you here?

There's no underestimating the history, the sheer historical power, of this city. It's manifest throughout music, movies, literature, whatever. But what keeps me here is that I've been here for 18 years. It's where I became a grown-up; it's where most of my formative experiences happened. I groove on -- groove on? -- that certain direct quality, the emotional immediacy. While Toronto is certainly polite and apparently kind -- and it is kind -- there's a social infrastructure that there just isn't here; there's a kind of chilly reserve that I no longer enjoy.

I enjoy the fact that, here, everyone in the bank has an opinion about what I'm doing.

Are you living the life you imagined as a youth?

I'm the luckiest person I know. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, checking for lumps. I'm incredibly fortunate right now. The life I lead is different from the one I imagined when I was younger, but equally wonderful. Because it's real, so it's very different. You know, all things that are real are different from the febrile fantasy version of them. So it's more difficult, but it's richer. It's more nuanced and ... sadder.

But no one's fantasies ever encompass sadness -- even my own. Which is weird, because sadness is a part of everything I think, say, sleep, eat or do. But I'm unbelievably fortunate right now -- so much so that it freaks me out a little bit to talk about it. You know what I mean?

I absolutely do. You're where I was a year ago, when my book had first come out, and I simply couldn't believe my good fortune. I felt that I was somehow mistakenly living someone else's life. I used to half-joke that I was on the lookout for runaway buses.

It's funny you say that. The last time my life was going so well was when I was 22 and living in Tokyo, and then I was briefly felled by that little illness [Hodgkin's disease]. That seemed to be the equation of my life.

May 15 was the book's pub date, and though I should probably be embarrassed to admit it, I was definitely, on some level, convinced that I wouldn't actually live to see May 15. I had to fly back from Canada on May 15, and I thought, Well, this is it. Then I realized that, of course, that wasn't the case, because God's not as big a drama queen as I am!

What impact did that bout with cancer have on your life? Having survived a serious illness, do you now live life with more gusto?

No, I don't live with any more gusto; I am still as tremulous and trepidatious as ever. But you must also understand that I felt somewhat dilettantish compared to the other people at the cancer hospital. And that was followed by my moving back to New York at the height of the [AIDS] pandemic. But it had a huge impact on me. It taught me things that are both very ethereal and very direct and pragmatic. Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped. I don't think that people are naturally sympathetic to other people in that way. So I think having been on the other side of that membrane gave me an appreciation for frailty that I might not have had otherwise.

If you were to be diagnosed again with something, do you think your reaction would be, "Oh no, this time it's got me," or something more like, "Well, I beat it once, I'll beat it again."

It's sad to say, but I would probably shut down emotionally in precisely the way I did last time and become just as adamantine and impenetrable. But at the same time, there would also be a sense of "Well ... finally! What have you been waiting for?"

Next Page: Here's how I describe writing: It's like pulling teeth ... out of your dick

• View blog reactions