Interview

A critic's life can be a happy one, with the right frame of mind. Robert Birnbaum talks to Pulitzer-prize winner Gail Caldwell about a life well read, 19th-century novels, and the changing of hearts.

Reproduced by permission of Robert Birnbaum, first published in 2003.

Gail Caldwell was born in Amarillo, Texas, in 1951, and is chief book critic at The Boston Globe, where she has been on staff since 1985. Caldwell had been a finalist in criticism for both the Pulitzer Prize (three times) and the American Society of Newspaper Editors Award and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for 'for her insightful observations on contemporary life and literature.' In a post-prize interview with Dan Kennedy, Caldwell observes that her intention, is to use her book reviews as a 'framework on which to build something more lasting… to write about the range of human experience, and not just whether to buy this book.' Gail Caldwell lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Clemmie (short for Clementine), her Samoyed canine companion.

This conversation took place at Mt Auburn Cemetery on a breezy late summer afternoon. As is usually the case Rosie, my Labrador was in attendance.

Robert Birnbaum: Are you used to living in Boston?
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