The issue of torture, connected to American soldiers, is not somewhere most people want to linger. We may not want to confront this issue so much in the U.S. because of how we want to think about our veterans. There's the sense that we want to think of our veterans as - if they're damaged, damaged by something glamorous, like a firefight.

And there are people who want to be writers because they love to write. And they care.

Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.

The United States particularly abandoned Liberia after the end of the Cold War.

Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.

Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. It's one that I embrace wholeheartedly and have been fortunate enough to be rewarded for.

We know that people we love are both good and bad, but we expect strangers to be one or the other.