David Madden is a writer who seems unafraid to tackle any project or subject. He has worked in almost every genre--short story, novel, poetry, drama, criticism, film, autobiography--and, until recently, kept as many as four projects going at once. In such eclecticism there can be, of course, great danger, but Madden has been amazingly successful as he has explored as many ways as possible to express the writer's imagination. He greatly admires Joyce Carol Oates's work and his writing bears a striking similarity to hers. His work might be described as he described hers: "produced upon the sweeping flood of an apparently inexhaustible creative energy." Repeatedly asked how he manages to balance the criticism and the fiction, he consistently replies that he has had little trouble doing so. "I think the reason I'm able to [see a critical book as a creative act] is because very early when...