Connecting the past and the present

Eric Bogosian is almost bouncing off the couch in his suite at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles, trying to remember who wrote “Madame Bovary.” With black curls, stocking feet and that kinetic energy, he’s vibrantly boyish, so when he declares “this is senior moment time,” it’s hard to believe he’s anywhere close.

But the troubles of advancing middle age are exactly the territory of “Perforated Heart,” the 56-year-old Bogosian’s new novel -- half of it, at least.

The book’s protagonist, Richard Morris, is a financially secure novelist who’s never quite lived up to his initial critical success. After an unexpected heart surgery, he has to cancel his book tour; recuperating in Connecticut, he finds a cache of his journals from 30 years before.

“Perforated Heart” moves between young Richard’s journals -- chronicling the enervating, creative world of 1970s New York -- and those of Richard in 2006. The elder Richard attends awards ceremonies with little hope of hearing his name, thinks about death and writes things like, “[s]he’s still young, she doesn’t understand that what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger, it wears you out and weakens what little integrity you have.”

It’s a dual portrait of the artist as a young and getting-old man.

The tension isn’t in what happens -- although the book includes a page-turning hunt for old heroes as well as misadventures in sex and drugs and love and art -- as much as it is in the contrast between Richard’s older and younger selves. How does his past connect to his present?

This is the dilemma Bogosian shares with his character. In the 1980s, he became known for his intense stage persona. In theater productions like “Men Inside,” “Drinking in America” and “Talk Radio,” Bogosian built his monologues from New York City’s streets. The power of his writing and performances made him a Pulitzer finalist in 1988 for “Talk Radio.”

But that was then. “The guy that wrote those shows was desperate, freaking out, climbing the walls,” he says. “Late ‘70s, early ‘80s, no money, rats in the apartment running up and down the walls, not knowing what the future held.”

There is that same in-the-moment vibrancy in “Perforated Heart.” Young Richard encounters the city and the scene without prejudice: now-famous clubs, poets, theater impresarios enter his journals as unnamed players, making for shiny retrospective cameos.

And yes, it draws from Bogosian’s own experiences: dancing all night, getting bialys at dawn, fearing he’d inhale a roach at his girlfriend’s apartment during an intimate moment.

Despite those commonalities, Richard also has a clear literary godfather. Bogosian lists “five big clues . . . father, heart problem, Connecticut, Upper West Side, ex-girlfriend who used to be an actress.”

If you guessed Philip Roth, you’re right.

“I’m not saying this is Philip Roth, it’s not Philip Roth,” Bogosian says. But some characteristics of the literary icon were “scaffolding for me to have fun with.”

Part of that fun is in the class-consciousness embedded in the language. Both Roth and Bogosian come from working-class backgrounds -- although, Bogosian points out, you wouldn’t know it from Roth’s book jackets.

“I’m very self conscious about being a good speaker and using language correctly,” Bogosian says. “Like Roth, it only grows over time. It never becomes more relaxed, it gets worse.”

To bring that to life in “Perforated Heart,” Bogosian pared down young Richard’s vocabulary and made his “thought process more airy” while “making the older guy denser and denser.”

That Bogosian is so conscious of these literary details might come as a surprise to people who see him on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

“I live in two worlds,” he admits. Take, for example, those who know his other work and those who know him from TV.

“I can walk around New York and have no one say boo to me about it. That’s kind of New York-style, anyway. But stop to get my gas refilled at a convenience station in the middle of nowhere and they know ‘Law & Order.’ ”

He’s happy on the show, and is quick to compliment his costars. “Vincent D’Onofrio is a great guy,” he says.

It’s hard not to compare the TV and literary worlds -- literature is never quite as glamorous. After Bogosian’s recent reading at the landmark Central Library downtown, actress Marg Helgenberger was so luminous that the signing lobby suddenly appeared dumpy.

But for Bogosian, the two worlds are symbiotic. Although he’s too busy on shooting days to get behind a keyboard, being a regular on a television show gives him time to write.

“It’s my MacArthur Grant,” he jokes.

Which means, simply, that he gets time to write, a welcome change after years of screenwriting. Though some of his projects got off the ground -- he was a creator of the 1990s ABC series “High Incident” -- Bogosian has as many Hollywood horror stories as any screenwriter. “I’d rather spend the three years on a book than this ridiculous development thing that they do,” he says, waving as if he’s leaving. “Bye! I can’t do this anymore! This is too stupid.”

It’s a flash of the angry Bogosian, the one who wrote and starred in stage works like “Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead.” At times he’s still indignant, frustrated, astonished, annoyed.

This is a duality like the one in his book. He may be best known for that past persona, but now he’s different. His manner is cheerful, even joyous. Maybe it’s the coffee. Maybe it’s the books.

“Writing is survival technique,” he says. “Not just writing, but reading too. Sometimes when I’m feeling really bad, I just go and stand and I look at my books.”

He talks about liking writers who some find difficult -- V.S. Naipaul, Rick Moody -- and calls “Already Dead” by Denis Johnson “beautiful.”

“ ‘Lay of the Land’ by Richard Ford just meanders forever -- I love it for it,” he says. “It’s kind of like a Boomer ‘Infinite Jest,’ because it’s really the most boring book in the world, but it’s kind of great because it’s boring. It just wanders and wanders and wanders.

“Anyway,” Bogosian continues, “the guy who wrote ‘Madame Bovary,’ said that you have to live a really sedate and structured life so you can write the exciting part. I have an incredibly sedate, boring life.”

It’s Richard Morris -- young and old -- who gets the drugs, sex, the bitter rants and all the rest of the excitement.

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carolyn.kellogg@latimes.com