“Et Tu, Babe” was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer’s life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing, it’s my whole life.

So where does the name Adam's apple come from? Most people say that it is from the notion that this bump was caused by the forbidden fruit getting stuck in the throat of Adam in the Garden of Eden. There is a problem with this theory because some Hebrew scholars believe that the forbidden fruit was the pomegranate. The Koran claims that the forbidden fruit was a banana. So take your pick---Adam's apple, Adam's pomegranate, Adam's banana. Eve clearly chewed before swallowing.

My work generally tends to be an all-out, 360-degree subversive take on everything, most of all my own notion of myself as a son, father, husband, human being and male in this culture.

The interesting thing about something in the back of your mind is that it can travel pretty far back in your mind.

I think to simply make fun of something isn't particularly interesting. I try to not just do a parody of something or belittle something or disparage something.

I can tell from about 20 yards away when someone has a manuscript for me. I can just tell - they have that look.

I have an enduring, very robust infatuation with dictators. I have an infatuation with Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. In the Paris Review interview I did (in 2013), I said my next book, this one, was going to be about Mussolini. I wound up only having a Mussolini cameo in the book.