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.

I think their pasts are treated with a voice that sees their role as those of innocents. That's reflected in the past time sequences. They're less "written."

Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.

What hasty preparations we make for our future. Think of it: it seems almost tragic, the things we're sure we ought to bring along. We pack too heavy with what we hope we'll use, and too light of what we must. We thus go forth misladen, ill equipped for the dawn.

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.

The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

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.