Before I begin a novel I have a strong sense of at least one central character and how the story begins, and a more vague sense of where things may wind up, but at some point, if the novel is any good at all, the story and characters take on lives of their own and take over the book, and the writer has to be open to that.

For better or worse I'm the writer I am today because of hearing those Dylan records. For better and most certainly not for worse, I'm the person I am today because of hearing Charles.

I have members of my immediate family, and my wife's immediate family, who voted for Donald Trump, and now there's this gulf that I have no interest in bridging however much I love those people. It's almost like the Civil War.

The material dictates the approach.

In essence I'm really a very traditional writer. I subscribe to the notion that, ultimately, characters do drive everything else.

Western music is arguably America's greatest contribution to the 20th century, cultural or otherwise.

Out of the house and on my own, I faced the fact I didn't much like who I was. I didn't like my judgmentalism; I didn't like my absolutism. I didn't like my repression of natural empathy, my pinched lack of emotional generosity. How I had been thinking politically had less to do with what was wrong with the world and more to do with what was wrong with me, with my fears and insecurities, failings, weaknesses.