SOURCE: “An Interview with Hugh Hood,” in Before the Flood: Hugh Hood's Work in Progress, edited by J. R. (Tim) Struthers, ECW Press, 1979, pp. 21–93.

In the following interview, which was conducted in 1978, Hood discusses the major influences on his writing as well as his major stylistic and thematic concerns.

[Struthers]: The stories in your first published book, Flying a Red Kite, were written between 1960 and 1962; but before that time you had written a Ph.D. thesis on “Theories of Imagination in English Thinkers 1650–1790” and two unpublished novels, God Rest You Merry and Hungry Generations. Could you describe the effects your Ph.D. thesis subject had on your own thinking, and could you say something about the subjects and style of those early unpublished novels?

[Hood]: I think that the main thing that doing that doctoral thesis did for me was to show me how to manage a long...