KEITH McNALLY

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

The restaurateur, memoirist, and champion Instagram captioner happily names names, but has regrets as well. (Admiring Woody Allen is not one of them)

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Taking an overnight train in Europe.

On what occasion do you lie?

When I want to sleep with someone.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"Can't make your dinner party because I have COVID."

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

"Shoeless Joe" Jackson.

What is your greatest fear?

My children dying before me.

Which living person do you most admire?

Woody Allen.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Craving the kind of success I pretend to despise.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Using knowledge as a weapon.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Basking in a modesty I don't possess.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Conspicuous humility.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?

A voice that's shot to pieces.

What is your greatest regret?

Not having regular checkups before my stroke.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

My six-year-old granddaughter, Olive.

When and where were you happiest?

Cycling around Martha's Vineyard alone in the summer of 1976.

Which talent would you most like to have?

The talent to look into a mirror and not despise the person staring at me.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

To be more straightforward. (I think.)

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

Commit to memory the Philip Larkin line: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad."

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

The failure of my suicide attempt in 2018.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

Orson Welles.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

Lake Geneva.

What is your most treasured possession?

A belief in due process.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Weddings.

What is your favorite occupation?

Sportswriter.

What is your most marked characteristic?

Fear of embarrassing myself.

What is your motto?

When being tortured, name names.

Who are your favorite writers?

Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Guy de Maupassant, Dickens, Tolstoy, and John Cheever.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Alec Leamas, the antihero in John le Garré's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

Who are your heroes in real life?

Steffi Graf and former UK politician Rory Stewart.

What are your favorite names?

Fanny Squeers and Augustus Snodgrass—characters from Dickens novels.

What is it that you most dislike?

Inauthenticity.

How would you like to die?

During sexual intercourse.