Living out West in Oregon for ten years (1949-61) gave Malamud a sense of home, however temporary. "It was where my wife had a feeling of roots: our daughter was born there. We still have a great deal of fondness for the area and spent a few weeks there last summer." He traces his own roots back to Brooklyn, where he was born, then turns pensive, even wistful "But I've been an many places: I think my roots are rather in Western culture. I find it hard to be nosfalgle, that's one of my problems. What I mean is writing creates a detachment towards experience, experience one wishes could be continued, could remain meaningful. Such as? Well, love of place diminishes, and you wish if hadn't. He sounds like Roy Hobbs, the wandering baseball hero of The Natural who had lost the feeling of a particular place. Yesterday he had come from somewhere. . .but today it had thinned away. . .and he felt he would never see it again." Malamud himself still finds that "I seem to go from one place to another with a way of looking that could be described as detached but appreciative."

THE WRITER is often doomed to remain a detached observer, but Malamud holds a firm stake in life through his teaching activities. "The more I think about it, the more I realize that if I had had talent in the sciences, I would have wanted to be a physician. My family says I would have make a good psychiatrist." One of the character in The Tenants sees much of her world through her psychoanalyst's eyes, and Malamud thinks that "at present, psychoanalysis and the spiritual life of the United States are closely linked. Piaget said lately that it's all mythic and will disappear shortly. That may be, but what Fread taught will never be forgotten. I think shift all those who need psychoanalysis should have it, but for many people it isn't really necessary. I would like to see more people use life creatively, fight through life and grow in the process-life is an existential struggle and we shouldn't have to run to a psychiatrist to escape it. A psychological crists is different, of course. And we will never out-do our need for self-knowledge, but there are other ways to attain it besides psychiatry.

Malamud senses that in youth culture, the youth movement and the literature coming out of the younger generation indicate continuity and broadness in cultural trends. I wouldn't call all of this literature new, but innovative. I'm aware of the changes, through my own children, and teaching I sense changes through what I see and read, and through personal contact. I sense a quieting mood, more reflective soul-searching. Related to this are religious activities, whether based on Zen or Jesus Christ. Young people in college are still up against the problem of what to do once they get out into the real world, and how to do it. They're thinking about how to conduct their lives in what is a difficult society, a difficult world. How to use the self to make a better world, a practicality I think betokens a good idealism."

Malamud's idealism emerges as he talks about politics. "I would like people to have a larger sense of human excellence, and to use this excellence in politics. I guess that seems like a contradiction in terms these days, doesn't it? What I wish for is a society in which a person like Nixon could be outlawed--no, that's not the word...well, thrust aside, because of all that he lacks. One of the most disappointing things about the electorate is that it's blind to excellence. All I see is self-interest. The greatest evil, the cause of this situation, is the enormous American affluence, and the devotion of people to preserving it. I would like to see larger-spirited, more generous people in the electorate and in power. People who are willing to make changes that would make it easier for people who now have too little. I'm for giving up as much material wealth as possible. I'd like more people to have more. We need a larger service-oriented population, also politicians who are not afraid to battle for real ideas. McGovern, for whom I voted is not necessarily a stronger man, but in some ways he had a larger vision. He was willing to be innovative." Suddenly he says thoughtfully, "I'm being foolish. I can afford to be idealistic, I suppose."

MALAMUD TRIES to live up to his own standards. "No, one is ever totally satisfied with the way he lives his life. You live it as best you can, in a way that is 'giving' to others. Can I do that through teaching? Yes, teaching is a small giving. There are many different kinds, I think: such as writing in its own right."

"That is not enough, though; to improve society there must be certain basic changes. Perhaps these can be politically arrived at. Civil rights, a larger division of affluence among people in need. A brighter sense of America's past and promise. If you stop dreaming, there's no dream.... I want practical things to happen, through education, through the university system.

"Many necessary changes have been made within that system. There's a better distribution of power reached through student activism, a larger awareness of the student role. This questioning of traditional education is worthwhile. Now there's a larger sense of freedom about what should be done in the future. This does not mean throwing out the past. To throw away the past is like annihilating the self."

Malamud laughs at the labels which contemporary critics have pinned on him. "Tragico-comico, realistico-fabulistico; the more the merrier!"