Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?

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.

When I'm describing wartime activities or violence I don't want to be too ornate, to prettify the picture. Once we trace them to the present, the prose becomes denser.

All of my books really do look at that to degrees of difference. Technically, I do enjoy the flashback! But not just for informational material.

It's not that I don't enjoy other people, but what I find with writers is this back and forth. And also, there's no need to talk about work.

There is secrecy and betrayal but that's more part and parcel of the kind of anguish that the people go through. And maybe that's modes of survival, rather than modes of consciousness.

What if loving something means you should mostly feel frustrated and thwarted? And then a little ruined, too, by the pursuit? But you keep coming back for more?