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Don Swaim Interviews

Jack Matthews Reads "The Girl at the Window"
Also, an Audio Interview with Jack Matthews
and a Discussion of the Life and Writings of Ambrose Bierce

"The Girl at the Window" by Jack Matthews
( 22 min. 19 sec.)

Jack Matthews discusses growing up in northern Columbus, Ohio, graduating from Ohio State, publishing his first book and teaching at Ohio University.

He also talks with Don about his first novel, Hanger Stout, Awake! and discusses his passionate interest of book collecting. He’s collected books ever since his high school days. He even tried his hand at a rare book store in Glouster, Ohio.

He also talks about what current (at the time of the interview) students of literature write and what they read in the classroom.

To hear more from Matthews, click on the link below.

Listen to the Jack Matthews interview with Don Swaim, 1984
(25 min. 55 sec.)

Listen to Jack Matthews and Don Swaim discuss
the life and writings of Ambrose Bierce
(46 min. 38 sec.)

Go to the Ambrose Bierce page

Of THE CHARISMA CAMPAIGNS, Anthony Burgess wrote, "This book already has the feel of an American classic."

In a NEW YORK TIMES review of DUBIOUS PERSUASIONS, Tim O'Brien wrote: "Mr. Matthews is a master of prose conversation and deadpan charm. He is ironic, cool, and shrewd, and he writes a lucid prose."

Of SASSAFRAS, James Dickey wrote, "It's rowdy, boisterous, bold, and it flows over with comic energy.  Our hero is that great American figure, the philosopher-rogue.  If the young Mark Twain suddenly came back to earth, SASSAFRAS is the book he might write."

Of HANGER STOUT, AWAKE! Eudora Welty wrote that she found it "blessed with honesty, clarity, directness, proportion, and a lovely humor."

Poet, essayist, and editor, Robin Skelton wrote of COLLECTING RARE BOOKS FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT: "Wittily and expertly [Matthews] takes us on a journey through the country of Bibliomania, providing anecdotes, giving hints, analyzing trends, and expressing at all times his own infectious enthusiasm . . . I would have liked another 300 pages of entertainment, having read the first 300 three times already."

In his LOS ANGELES TIMES review of THE CHARISMA CAMPAIGNS, the novelist Herbert Gold wrote: "Celebrity has never been a trustworthy guide to contemporary quality, and Matthews is more evasive and elusive than most writers. His books strike a note of Midwestern sparseness and matter-of-factness, combined with thunderclap digestive noises of buffoonery; the surfaces are clear and the depths not intrusive. And yet matters are more complicated than they seem. He pretends to be innocent. He pretends to be sincere. He is not innocent and he is filled with guile. [Matthews is] a most interesting original, surely meriting discovery . . ."

In his WASHINGTON POST review of BOOKING IN THE HEARTLAND, David Streitfeld wrote that ". . . anyone who's got the book bug will find much pleasure here. It's sent me on the search for Matthews' COLLECTING RARE BOOKS FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT, which I intend to snap up the first time I find it languishing in an antique shop or flea market."

In her NEW YORK TIMES review of CRAZY WOMEN, Doris Grumbach wrote, "Jack Matthews in his straightforward language reaches a point at which his facts take on ominous overtones, allow suggestions of horror, desperation, threat to enter through the clear, undecorated logic of events . . . His heights are towering and intense."

In his LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS review of GHOSTLY POPULATIONS, Karl Miller wrote: "Matthews . . . contributes . . . to an excellent American fiction of the present time which seems to be virtually unknown in Britain, where feelings of respectful inferiority are commonly produced by other varieties of American writing."

 In the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER Alida Becker--cited by the National Book Critics Circle for excellence in reviewing--wrote of DUBIOUS PERSUASIONS: "What Matthews is doing in these stories is speculating of what a sense of time and place mean to our sense of identity. But if he's always challenging us to think a little harder, he's also urging us, through the astonishing variety of his moods and voices, to see ourselves and our preoccupations from as many angles as we possibly can."

Of Matthews' MEMOIRS OF A BOOKMAN, Sam Pickering wrote: "I read the book . . . with great enjoyment. Indeed, there were moments when I could not put it down. The book is informative and entertaining. It is also philosophical. Matthews' bookish doings exemplify a way of life. The book teaches the good lesson that interest breeds observation and observation breeds life. The life is wonderfully rich in goods, both material and moral. The voice of the author is unique and appealing."

In his USA TODAY review, Bruce Allen wrote: "Superb short stories appeared in DIRTY TRICKS, by Jack Matthews . . . whose virtuosic concern with human variation and conflict displays a remarkable range of tones and effects."

In the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Art Seidenbaum wrote: "Few contemporary writers can--or want to--compose stories in the narrow tunnel of the interior, the rutted trail of memory between mind and heart, sometimes shutting out other people as well as time and place and usual props. Matthews takes us there, carrying a bright light."

"The Girl at the Window" appears in DUBIOUS PERSUASIONS: SHORT STORIES BY JACK MATTHEWS, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1981.

Jack Matthews is the author of over twenty books of fiction, essays, and poetry. His works have appeared in THE YALE REVIEW, THE MALAHAT REVIEW, THE SEWANEE REVIEW, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NATIONAL REVIEW, POETRY, THE KENYON REVIEW, MADEMOISELLE, THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, GAMUT, and THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. He is Distinguished Professor of English Language and Literature at Ohio University.

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