The idea wasn't to make a direct political statement since the current economic collapse hadn't begun when we started on the book. The parallels I'm most interested in are the ways that human nature never changes, no matter how far back in time you look.

I can't blame anyone for being pessimistic when they look around, after all the blood spilled and energy spent to gain ground for working people in the past, and see it all happening again. I wasn't pointing a finger when I wrote the book, but sometimes the message is there even when you aren't actively trying to be the messenger.

There is a need for more economic growth, for more job growth. But there is a need in some people for them to recognize that they have a role in making these problems better. And we can't - we can't ignore that.

But knowing that the world had come full circle to our Depression story didn't change the way we worked on it, or encourage us to change our thrust. I want people to be able to pick up this book in the future no matter what's going on in the world, and appreciate it on its own merits, not for any perceived winks at the headlines.

I've been asked if I'd consider doing Ropes as a straight novel - which is flattering, I suppose - but I can't imagine why I'd want to limit myself that way. There's a certain immediacy we gain from that specific image of Fred being struck by a revelation, of those union workers appearing from the shadows in an alley, of a lonely woman wondering for just a moment if she should make a pass at this young man in her hotel room

My personal beliefs were shaped more by experience and by watching the news when I was young: images of angelic-looking college students in Mississippi crying like the world was ending because black people were being allowed on their campus; the slow mounting horror of Vietnam on the evening news every night; sitting with my parents in front of the TV and being appalled at the way the Chicago police were treating the protesters during the '68 Democratic convention. Being eyed with suspicion because of my age and the way I wore my hair.

When the president talks about tax reform, he talks about the people who will benefit. He talks about American jobs. He talks about the fact that we're going to be taking money that's overseas and bringing it back to the United States so that it will employ American workers. I think that focus again on the American working and middle class is- is-is to me the most thoughtful and, in some ways, the most genius part of Trump's approach to politics.