Usually, ordinary histories don't get the emotional feel of a period. That's what a novel can do.
Alix Kates ShulmanI see old age not as something to hide from or dread (though there is much to oppose in the usual treatment of the old) but rather as something to embrace as the natural and inevitable end.
Alix Kates ShulmanEver since Freud, being alone has been considered something of a psychological failure. The point, according to Freudian theory, is to be able to love and connect. But I don't believe that at all. I think that being alone and being coupled and being in a group are all natural states in which people can thrive.
Alix Kates ShulmanWithin walking distance of any spot on Earth there's probably more than enough mystery to investigate in a lifetime.
Alix Kates ShulmanI am not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference; still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.
Alix Kates Shulman