I started going to Ohio University when I was in my mid-thirties, ended up with an English degree when I was forty.

I don't think I'd call [mood] a major force, but it is important as far as hitting the right notes or nuances with a character or scene.

I spent thirty-two years in a paper mill in southern Ohio, and before that I worked in a meatpacking plant and a shoe factory.

I really have no idea what the French think of my characters, or why The Devil All the Time did so well there.

Nostalgia is partly illusion in that we remember things differently as we get older, etc. But that doesn't mean, when historians look back on the 1950s, say, from the year 2090, it won't be judged as a saner, slower, less narcissistic, more family-focused, and economically secure time.

I started going to Ohio University when I was in my mid-thirties, ended up with an English degree when I was forty.

I do think they [French] view my writing itself as exotic - though that's probably not the best term for it - to a small extent, mainly because I say things that most French writers would probably hesitate to say for fear of offending someone or upsetting public sensibilities. I don't think that answers the question, but I'm not much good at figuring readers out or I would probably be writing bestsellers.