I'm one of three brothers.

In some ways, a novel isn't as structurally rigorous as a screenplay or a TV show, which have finite real estate. In a novel, you can more deeply illuminate a character's interior and get away with digressions.

Where I came from, no one was a writer.

I knew I wanted to be a writer. Where I came from, no one was a writer. I came from Long Island, and everyone became a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a teacher or a businessman. I didn't know any writers.

When you do a TV show, the cumulative intimacy you develop with the audience through your characters is pretty profound. It may be the most profound storytelling there is, because the character gets to live and roll around in the audience's mind week after week.

The novel remains a very special form for me.

TV and film are very different media with different requirements. In a TV show, you have actors and fellow writers and directors, who are interpreting your work. With a novel, you only have ink, words and your reader.