We need to do something about gun violence in America. But every time one of these things happen, we say the same thing, and then we don't seem to be able to do anything. And that needs to change.

I have a life, I have a wife. I have an adult son who I'm very close to, and friends. I go hiking almost every day, four to six miles. In the summer, I'm out surfing or swimming. I think that real, human relationships with people mostly balance dark places in my work.

I'm a jazz guy and a Bruce Springsteen guy. So I wanted something more current, and edgier, and angrier. So I asked my kid to educate me about hip hop; he has an encyclopedic knowledge of it. And he did so. I found it to be much richer than I would've thought. I think some of the poetry in it is really spectacular. I threw rap into the book. I think I mentioned Kendrick Lamar. I'm really into Tupac these days. I love Nas, N.W.A.

My grandmother was from Guelph, Ont. I grew up playing ice hockey, I'm a massive fan. A great-uncle who was in the early days of the NHL played for the Chicago Blackhawks.

I don't recognize myself. I don't know who I am anymore." And it's all fun and games until someone loses an I.

With a 660-page book, you don't read every sentence aloud. I am terrified for the poor guy doing the audio book. But I do because I think we hear them aloud even if it's not an audio book. The other goofy thing I do is I examine the shape of the words but not the words themselves. Then I ask myself, "Does it look like what it is?" If it's a sequence where I want to grab the reader and not let the reader go then it needs to look dense. But at times I want the reader to focus on a certain word or a certain image and pause there.

I have sat with the mothers who have lost addicted sons. I have sat with families of kids who have been killed in drug-related gang violence. I have been to the prisons. I have seen the effects. At some point in time, I felt I had to do something other than write a novel about it, that I needed to try to make some sort of contribution, at least try to make some sort of difference in the real world.