Me writing the book and the subsequent interactions that we had were actually the cap on that experience. We were still in this weird purgatory about it when I published the book. When I gave them the galleys and what ensued after that, then I understood a lot more about our relationships and what the experience meant to them. I'd never wanted to know what they thought about it at all.

I never think about anything in my brain. I think in very small repetitive circles inside my own brain. That's why I'm a writer. It's the only way I get any sort of conclusion or understanding about anything.

Anyone who makes a life of what they love is a hero to me, and it's important for those people to be visible in every kind of life, every kind of love, every kind of work.

Torch songs are confessions. They are an expression of feeling that cannot be concealed or contained or minimized. They are marked by anguish, yes, but also by yielding.

You don't know how people are going to respond. But I would add to that, that getting your heart broken is not the worst thing and it's actually quite unavoidable. I think in some ways I had to break my father's heart and then face that in order to have a real relationship with him.

I more seriously considered publishing it under a pseudonym than I considered publishing it as fiction. I think the decision to write it as nonfiction happened at the very outset of the process, because the overwhelming impetus for writing this book was to understand what the experience meant, and to override my own reductions and rationalizations, whatever story I had that was not true. It didn't sit well with me and I needed to answer that. That's sort of the reason I write everything.

I have replaced my instinct for secrecy with an instinct for confession.