Very few writers of distinction in fact were outstanding as undergraduates.

I don't think I'm morbid by nature. Serious writers have always written about serious subjects. Lighthearted material doesn't appeal to me, and I don't read it. I think I'm a realist, with a realistic sensibility of history and the tragedy of history.

Princeton is quite integrated. Women are professors at Princeton. Women are students at Princeton. That began in the 1970s.

The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery.

"Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.

Ambitious, absorbing, and poignantly moving.

I always rewrite the very beginning of a novel. I rewrite the beginning as I write the ending, so I may spend part of morning writing the ending, the last 100 pages approximately, and then part of the morning revising the beginning. So the style of the novel has a consistency.