I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.

The rosary was said every evening. I always liked that sentence about the medieval Churches, that they were the Bibles of the poor. The Church was my first book and I would think it is still my most important book.

I used to take five or six books away and bring five or six books back. Nobody gave me direction or advice and I read much in the way that a boy might watch television.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

As a writer, I write to see. If I knew how it would end, I wouldn't write. It's a process of discovery.

I belong to the middle class that grew up very influenced by the Catholic church. The people of the novel are from a more pagan and practical world in which the Christianity is just a veneer.

I read all the time. I was reading a book I admire very much by Alice McDermot called Charming Billy.