Jennifer Egan is a rare novelist whose work is innovative, fiercely intelligent, emotionally potent and fun to read—and she’s equally thoughtful and provocative in conversation. She won the Pulitzer Prize for A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010), and The Candy House, just out in paperback, made Barack Obama’s list of favorite 2022 books. Those novels’ interconnected stories and characters occupy the same universe, but should someone read one book before the other? Does she start her novels with an idea, characters, plot or storytelling strategy? Has she ever learned anything useful from a review? Why does she think every college student should be an English major? And what did she hear from David Bowie about Goon Squad? (Photo by Pieter M. Van Hattem.)