“All through this, I’ve always thought that if you thought of all of it as a book then you have the Great American Novel, every record as a chapter,” he told Rolling Stone in 1987. “They’re all in chronological order. You take the whole thing, stack it and listen to it in order, there’s my Great American Novel.”
- Lou Reed on his career
And from the 1989 interview:
You've always contended that your records are your version of the Great American Novel.
Yeah, when you play it all in a row. If you have the patience to follow it.
Do you think your "novel" would have made it as poetry or prose, rather than rock & roll?
It wouldn't have had a drum. It wouldn't have had guitars. So you wouldn't have gotten that physicality from it. That's kind of what I like about it.
descensus Averno facilis est