This is not an international thriller so much as a fiercely literate attempt to subvert the thriller genre itself.

It never occurred to me to write anything that didn't include gay characters in it.

I think the gay community, as a whole, is slighted by high-profile figures who remain in the closet. But I think that a lot of times we need to ask ourselves what that person's role in our community would be if they were out of the closet.

The good thing about New Orleans is that, overall, it's an accepting place. It's accepting of eccentricity, it's accepting of excess, it's accepting of color, in the sense of culture, not necessarily in the sense of race.

I think outsiders sometimes produce the best fictional perspectives on reality because they're set apart from it, so they have a unique view from the border.

I think there are profound differences between the civil rights struggle for African Americans and the civil rights struggle for gay Americans.

I do believe in the Kinsey scale, I think many of us fall in different places on the scale and I think it's for each one of us to decide where we are on the scale, it's not for someone else to decide for us.