But now the world, he thought, had taken them. He knew that this could suddenly happen. One day you just woke up, and there was somewhere that you needed to be.

When I wrote The Interestings, I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing. I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.

The minute you had kids you closed ranks. You didn't plan this in advance, but it happened. Families were like individual, discrete, moated island nations. The little group of citizens on the slab of rock gathered together instinctively, almost defensively, and everyone who was outside the walls—even if you'd once been best friends—was now just that, outsiders.

Everybody has a theme. You talk to somebody awhile, and you realize they have one particular thing that rules them. The best you can do is a variation on the theme, but that's about it.

Even if you yourself were unhappy and anxious, whenever you glimpsed happiness in your child, you suddenly became happy too.

In The Interestings I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time. In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away.

And specialness - everyone wants it. But Jesus, is it the most essential thing there is? Most people aren't talented. So what are they supposed to do - kill themselves?