There's this false notion that this is a regional phenomenon, when in fact every state in the union has hardcore rednecks. No exceptions.

I never laugh or smile when I am writing. When I come home for lunch after writing all morning, my wife says I look like I just came home from a funeral. This is not bragging. This is an illness.

I got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the celebrity culture in America. My background is as a news journalist, and newsrooms in the US are shrinking - investigation teams are being terminated or shrunk on newspapers all around the country. The one aspect that's expanded is coverage of celebrity culture.

I won't be making any friends in the corporate suites.

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.

All novels are about crime. You'd be hard pressed to find any novel that does not have an element of crime. I don't see myself as a crime novelist, but there are crimes in my books. That's the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world.

There's this false notion that this is a regional phenomenon, when in fact every state in the union has hardcore rednecks. No exceptions.