It’s difficult to be a truly interesting person with a unique perspective on life, and have the skills to transmute that experience into a work of art, when you’re young. You simply haven’t logged the hours in the world, and I kind of don’t trust your opinion on something if you haven’t.

Not sure if I’d call him a major writer, but Raymond Chandler is one of my favorites and I think he’s a good example. To me there is a fundamental difference between his crime stories, which show the results of corporate life, alcoholism, personal tragedy, war, etc. and a more modern crime writer that’s just writing a genre piece with all the right pieces, but no actual personal experience.