SOURCE: Begley, Louis, and Elizabeth Devereaux. “PW Interviews: Louis Begley.” Publishers Weekly 241, no. 18 (2 May 1994): 276-78.

In the following interview, Begley discusses his career as a lawyer, his decision to write his first novel, and his opinions on illness and dying—further illuminating the portrayal of Toby's death in As Max Saw It.

Louis Begley has just returned from business in Japan, but he brushes off the notion of jet lag. “I never have it,” he says. Looking at the man in the unimpeachable gray suit, in his beautifully ordered corner office on the 25th floor of a building in midtown Manhattan, it's easy to believe him. It would take a lot more than crossing the international date line to discomfit Mr. Begley, an internationally acclaimed novelist whose literary career is no less astonishing than the rest of his remarkable history.

His is a story worthy of Hollywood: Guided...