Some readers sort of suspect that you have another book that you didn't publish that has even more information in it. I think that readers sort of want to be taught something. They have this idea that there's a takeaway from a novel rather than just the being there, which I think is the great, great pleasure of reading.
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I don't want to write about violence, and I don't want to hang a plot on a murder. I think it's cheap.
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My own 'sentimental favorite' is always the novel I haven't yet written - I suppose that's the one I consider my 'masterpiece' as well.
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It worries me that undergrads and high school students are forced into books they aren't ready for, like Faulkner's, and then they are afraid of putting their toes in the water again.
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At the beginning of every semester, I ask my graduate students whether there is something I should read that will help me understand their work.
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I do have friends in Pittsburgh, and I had some wonderful experiences there.
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Memory is not pure. Memories told are not pure memories; memories told are stories. The storyteller will change them. I've always been interested in that.
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I know Irish-American people. I know what their homes look like. I know what they have for dinner. I know how they turn a phrase.
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I think a misconception among many non-religious people is that anyone with a strong faith is, in all ways and at all times, blindly consistent, unwavering, unquestioning.
