Every now and then, you find a book that feels like it was keyed to your DNA.

The idea of a talent that was bigger than an artist's ability to choose to use it, that would dictate the artist's life more than the artist could dictate, was interesting to me.

I grew up treating a life as a writer as a career in letters, one devoted to many kinds of writing. And so it seemed normal to study both fiction writing and the literary essay as an undergrad.

As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

The way some were entrapped into lives of prostitution, the way that something like marriage could rob them of their rights.

The myth works to make the very real things people don't want to look at visible for them.

I was trying to make a novel about something no one wanted to read about into something they couldn't put down or look away from.