The interview without a favourite book

Text: an original contemporary literary-profile-style practice extract.

I asked the novelist for her favourite book. She looked at the recorder, then asked whether I meant the book she reread, the one that had changed her writing or the one she would give to a stranger. I had expected a title. She had returned three different questions.

When I chose rereading, she described a novel she visited for its sentences rather than its plot. When I asked about influence, she named a collection whose ending she disliked enough to argue with for years. The book she would give a stranger depended, she said, on the stranger. My form contained one short box beside favourite. I began taking notes beneath it instead.

We eventually agreed on a title for the published interview, with a sentence explaining her choice. The original question had opened the conversation; it had not supplied a complete shape for the answer. I left with one name I could print and several distinctions I would have lost by insisting that the name arrive first.

In this extract, the writer tries to show that a familiar question can restrict what someone is able to explain.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.