I suppose that the sympathetic/unsympathetic debate about characters sometimes feels to me like a misstatement of purpose. I always think of truly complex characters are falling between the cracks in that debate.

Updike worked this way, and I just kinda borrowed it from him. So the memoir will be relief from novel writing for a moment.

I always wanted to write something illustrated, and the Details strip finally gave me the opportunity.

I think first-person narrators should be complex, because otherwise the first-person is too shallow and predictable. I like a first-person narrator who can't totally be trusted.

There is no right or wrong reading of Naked Lunch, though some readings are more common, and thus Burroughs commercial is not the issue.

I believe that God locates himself at the spot where you recognize your own fallibility....And the paradox of it all has been that whenever I give up I seem to do better.

I don't know exactly how long the book as we know it will exist, but I fully expect to make it to my death without having to give up on books.