What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.

I often heard about his cases and I often sat in on his trials. In the late 1960s when I was growing up I wanted to be a crusader like him but I didn't want to wear a suit and commute.

To deny that there was this dark side of life would be like pretending that the cold of winter was somehow only a temporary illusion, a way station on the way to the higher "reality" of long, warm, pleasant summers. But summer, it turned out, was no more real than the snow that melted in wintertime.

Fiction is socially meaningful.

The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer.

I have traveled the entire state and spent a lot of time out of doors. So I have known the landscape of the Columbia Basin for quite a while, and I have had this strong feeling about it for many years.

A literary achievement of the highest order.