I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.

An average working day begins at 8 or 9 am, includes an hour for lunch, and ends at 5 or 6 pm.

I believe I encountered death, which was a bit too much for a seven-year-old.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

Ideally, I would create a book so interdependent and self-sustaining in its parts, so wondrously connected word by word and paragraph by paragraph, so charged with the joy of language, that it would actually float three or four inches above any table where you try to set it down.

These days, there are a great many books about childhood trauma and its effects, but at the time all the experts agreed that one should forget about it as quickly as possible and pick up where you left off.

I write longer sentences than most of the others, maybe because I probably like Henry James more than they do.