Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body. It's not fair, I think, and I get this petulant wish for ugly flowers and mourners, my mother's old familiar grief. Somebody I love to tend my future grave. Probably this is the wrong thing to be wishing for.

My mom says I'm destined to be the sort of man who uses big words but pronounces them incorrectly.

If you're short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell.

Mythology is a really beautiful vocabulary passed down through centuries that helps us understand the perennial parts of our nature.

When I was younger I used to lock myself in the bathroom and read in the dry tub. I was also a fan of the 'shoe closet.' Reading felt thrilling and illicit and deeply private to me, and I felt vulnerable doing it in public.

Any place, then, can become a cemetery. All it takes is your body. It's not fair, I think, and I get this petulant wish for ugly flowers and mourners, my mother's old familiar grief. Somebody I love to tend my future grave. Probably this is the wrong thing to be wishing for.

For me, the term "literary fiction" means there's always attention paid to language, and linguistic experimentation, sophistication.