New Republic senior editor Timothy Noah is the author of The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It. Before talking about the source of the gap between the rich and the poor in America, he sat down in the green room to talk about the benefits of getting into a Twitter war, his lowest-paying job, and chicken pie.
Q. If you could annex one country to the U.S. as the 51st state, which would you choose?
A. That is something I have never thought about. Maybe Canada, in the hopes that we could adopt their single-payer health insurance.
Q. What was your lowest-paying job of all time?
A. Probably when I worked at the Washington Monthly in the early 1980s; the salary was $8,400 a year. That salary rate had been there for a good 10 or 20 years, and it stayed at that rate for at least another 10.
Q. When was the last time you did something for the first time?
A. What an incredibly intimidating question. This past year, when I wrote my first book.
Q. Would you rather listen to Bob Marley sing on a Kingston beach or drink Manhattans with Marilyn Monroe in a 1950s Hollywood bar?
A. I would definitely much rather drink with Marilyn Monroe. Not even close.
Q. What’s the best gift you’ve ever given someone else?
A. I threw a really great surprise birthday party for my best friend in 1983.
Q. What’s your favorite cheese?
A. Cheddar. Extra sharp.
Q. What’s been your best-received Tweet?
A. I’m not sure I know. But I find that whenever I get into a stupid Twitter war I get all sorts of socially damaging positive reinforcement.
Q. Who was your childhood hero?
A. I grew up in the 1970s. Heroes didn’t really loom very large in the ’70s.
Q. What comforts you?
A. Chicken pie.
Q. What’s your fondest L.A. memory?
A. Graduating from Beverly Hills High School.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.