They may already know too much about their mother and father--nothing being more factual than divorce, where so much has to be explained and worked through intelligently (though they have tried to stay equable). I've noticed this is often the time when children begin calling their parents by their first names, becoming little ironists after their parents' faults. What could be lonelier for a parent than to be criticized by his child on a first-name basis?

When I write a novel I start each morning by reading for 20 minutes.

My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I've never done. Also, I'm a person whom people talk to.

To write you had to read so I backed into reading.

Love isn’t a thing, after all, but an endless series of single acts.

Maybe I'm a serial regional writer. First here, then there, across the map.

For a time after my divorce everything began to seem profoundly ironic to me. I found myself thinking of other peoples' worries as sources of amusement and private derision which I thought about at night to make myself feel better.