By definition it uses and plays and delights in time. It delights in the interlacing of chronologies and the consequences of that interlacing. And those have personal and psychological expressions in a character. Aside from other issues of writing, psychological characterization is what narrative can do best.

I wanted to write about the Korean War, but I had no entry into it that made the kind of sense it needs to make for a novelist.

Like most people, Im fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect.

I did feel a little afraid, as you say, the complete liberty and "elasticity" of it. But I found that I liked some of the things that it availed me of in terms of emotion and tonal stuff. I came to find it appealing.

I don't think that stuff is gone - I just don't want to dwell on it. There's a difference. As I said, I think we all have tendencies as writers, and I think we all have experience that we bring as readers to each project.

I wanted to present a sweep and scope of larger events, and a grander backdrop, but most important was to set against that a very singular, real and modest people struggling with every day and human struggles.

My family immigrated when I was 3, and our predecessors inhabited the Korean Peninsula for as long as can be recalled.