In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other.

I can't heal your pain but I can see it. And you don't have to be lost. Not forever.

My mother is an office manager, my father a professor of economics and financial planner.

I'd much rather do an obviously commercial writing project than get a day job.

Never relinquish your terrors. That's when they catch you.

Yeah, I think A Confederacy of Dunces is probably the perfect New Orleans book.

If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.