I can't think of anything you might say about Irish people that is absolutely true.

I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural.

I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.

I never wanted to be mainstream as a writer, but look at what's happened.

There's quite a big gap when it comes to that dual identity of mother and child, or even a pregnant woman, or a nursing woman. It kind of begs the question of that very strong Western idea of the individual self.

We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.

In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from.