My new novel 'Red Hook Road' began many years ago as a short article in the newspaper.

I am a very nonspiritual person.

The statistic that 67 percent of women's admissions to the psychiatric facilities are during the week before menstruation is critically important to every woman, and to every woman who feels she suffers from depression.

I hate homework. I hate it more now than I did when I was the one lugging textbooks and binders back and forth from school. The hour my children are seated at the kitchen table, their books spread out before them, the crumbs of their after-school snack littering the table, is without a doubt the worst hour of my day.

The idea of going down to Central or South American and taking ayahuasca and shitting my pants and puking in a circle of overprivileged white people is not my idea of a good time. That's not going to happen.

I have two daughters and I have done everything in my power to prevent them from assimilating, even being aware of, my idiocy about my weight.

In fact if I see you drinking I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks and call your mom.