Nathaniel Rich is unquestionably a big name in the young, New York-based literati scene. He went to Yale, is a senior editor at Paris Review, and carries the high expectations that come along with an impressive pedigree: his father is New York Times columnist Frank Rich, and his brother, Saturday Night Live writer Simon Rich, famously inked a book deal with Random House before he even graduated from college. That's got to be a lot to live up to, so perhaps it's no surprise that his first novel, The Mayor's Tongue, is an ambitious attempt to pair together the stories of two men, one young and one old, who are both searching for something as heady as the meaning of life. At the age of 27, Rich has made an earnest attempt at creating a serious piece of literature (something that can't necessarily be said for some of his contemporaries).

Rich is in town today for a 7 p.m. reading and book signing at Politics and Prose. He took some time while out on his first book tour to answer a few questions from DCist.

Your publisher is making a point of telling everyone that you wrote this book in secret. How much of a secret was it really? Given that you were already a fairly well-known writer and editor, did anyone actually ever ask you if you planned to write a novel, and you denied it?

I really didn’t tell a single person about the novel until I had finished a draft in early 2006. I began thinking about writing the novel in 2001. The only person who knew about it during those years was my girlfriend at the time, who I would keep awake with my typing when I worked at night. I didn’t let her read any of it, however, and that only made her more irritated. The truth is that I didn’t know whether I would be able to finish it and whether it’d be too crazy. Much of it was, in fact, too crazy, so I ended up making a lot of cuts during the two-year editing process. Some of the excised material—much of it about the character Constance Eakins—now exists in a slightly altered form on the website.

No one ever asked me if I planned to write a novel as far as I can remember. If they did, I probably just shrugged in response.

Photo of Nathaniel Rich by Mark Schäfer, courtesy Putnam | Riverhead

What do you write on? MacBook? Typewriter? Where did you write the majority of this book?

I wrote the largest chunk of the novel on an iBook, in San Francisco, when I lived there between January 2004 and June 2005.

How did Stephen King end up blurbing your book? Also, there are elements of thriller to your story ... do you read a lot of Stephen King books, or thrillers in general?

From the ages of nine to 14, I exclusively read Stephen King—I think it was 23 books in a row. I remember, when I was nine, being fascinated by the idea that a book—a dusty paperback on my parents’ shelf—could have the power to elicit fear. In retrospect, I think I was excited by the idea that writing could engender a deep emotional response; at nine, fear was the emotion that was most accessible to me. So I credit King with being the first writer who made me excited about reading, and literature.

I had no expectation that he would give a comment to my novel, but knowing my passion for his work, my editor decided to send him a copy. It’s impossible to express how thrilled I was when he responded with such enthusiasm. He’s not only an author I deeply admire, he’s also the writer who most inspired me to pursue writing. I still don’t think I’ve quite recovered from reading his note about The Mayor’s Tongue. There’s no writer that does more to support and promote young authors than King.

What's it been like to be out on your first book tour? Do you ever get nervous speaking in front of large groups?

It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being a professional athlete, or in a rock band, so I’m making the most of it. I occasionally get nervous speaking in public, and I am often inarticulate. I have family and friends in most of the cities I’ve gone to, so it is reassuring to look down and see, as I did in Boston, my 93-year-old great aunt beaming back at me. My grandparents will be in attendance at Politics and Prose, so I hope I don’t embarrass them too much.

The characters in your book are all searching for people who they think can give their lives meaning. Do you feel like its the people in our lives that give life meaning, or is it more about the inner journey? Are these some of the themes you consciously thought about while you were writing, or did the story unfold for you more organically?

These themes were very much in my mind as I wrote. In general I laid out carefully the structure of the novel, and the two central plot lines, before I even began writing. The first year or so of the writing process, in fact, was devoted entirely to making notes about characters, structure, themes, and plot. I have no idea what the meaning of life is, but I think it has something to do with communication, relationships, and perhaps baseball.

Any plans while you're in D.C.?

I’m going to interview my grandfather about his lifetime in Washington for a special Washington, D.C. issue of the magazine Stop Smiling. There have been Riches in Washington selling clothing since 1869 (mostly shoes—Rich’s Shoes was in business for about four generations). My grandfather was a major civil rights pioneer in the District, and was particularly active after the race riots in 1968. He’s 87 now, and I’m looking forward to getting his whole story down on tape. I will also ask his advice about footwear, since my Sauconys are killing me.