For the book to succeed, it has to have equal parts ugliness and beauty, counterpoints adding up to emotional complexity. To me, there's a dignity in letting your art be emotionally complex.

I'm a very tactile learner, so I need analog index cards, moving them all about, trying out various sequences for the book's architecture.

My tunnel vision allows me to have a longer work day than most writers. I'm thankful for that.

My job as the novelist is to present the whole case, then the reader gets to render her verdict.

I used to consider myself to be a cineophile, and then I had a daughter. Ha! Now I barely see any movies.

Hughes' debut novel, At Dawn, follows a former All-American wrestler, and is there any better metaphor for contemporary American life? We're all wrestling, tussling with the economy, no jobs, doing the best we can. Hughes doesn't flinch from the tough existential questions. He embraces them.

Memoirs need confusion. It's the thing every human has in common. We are magnificently confused.