The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.

I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

In fact, not knowing is a necessary condition of writing for me. I don't know how else to reach something unexpected. I have to be as in the dark as my characters.

I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book.

Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.

I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is formed around these prevailing attitudes.