We're a culture that's obsessed with people who make and who squander ridiculous amounts of wealth, which seemed an obsession well worth interrogating in a novel. That probably accounts for what some have called the book's "sweeping" feel, but I don't know that I set out to be cinematic. I wouldn't know how to do that in a novel, specifically.

It's hard enough to make a novel a novel. I wouldn't know how to make it something else at the same time

My parents were very patient with my pretentious little adolescent snobberies. It took me awhile to accept them.

I like writing sentences. It's tactile and exciting. Whereas working at the level of the scene is a more cerebral pleasure.

I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.

Everybody says, TV is great, the writer has so much power. I'm still trying to convince myself that's true. When do the writers ever have power? Ever? They don't. Even in the book industry.

People will continue to make movies. But I do think the economic model of the studio movie is closing in on a kind of systemic collapse.