Every writer knows that when you're imitating somebody - you know, you're sounding like Faulkner - you're doing pretty good, but your life in Hoboken isn't Faulkneresque.

What was fun for me with this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] was to start out with the principle that went, "We're going to fight every day to make this not a novel; make it too short to be a novel." And then with that principle in place, the book sort of starts to say, "Okay, but I really need this. I really need some historical nuggets." And you're like, "All right, but keep it under control."

If I can be more efficient, I'm actually being more respectful to the reader, which then implies a greater intimacy with the reader.

As for "toothy kindness" - I think all traditions are full of this sort of tough kindness. If someone is on a wrong or dull path, and someone else startles them into awareness of that, then that's a blessing. And the method by which the startle is obtained might be anger, or satire, or an intentionally applied indifference. But that is, of course, a fine line.

I always cheerfully say, "Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it'll do," but I do think it's maybe a little bit alarming. Everybody knows that one thing we really have to do is to be more wherever we are, more present, that's just kind of a commonplace. And the whole mobile phone thing is completely 100% the opposite - to never be where you are because you can always be somewhere else; and yet it's so fun and addictive.

One of the things I noticed about the Trump supporters was a lot of projected fear. I can't tell you how many times a conversation went like this: "We've got to stop these immigrants, because it's terrible." I'd say, "Okay, what personally have you observed about this?" And there would be basically nothing in that box. And I'd say, "Where'd you get your information?" thinking they were going to say Fox. But they would always say, "Well, I get my information from all kinds of sources." Fox is kind of center-left to a lot of people now.

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.