In terms of America, I think any profound consideration is bound to return us to the notion of twins because, though you certainly can contend there are many Americas, our history has been binary from the beginning, with its hairline fracture down the country's center between what American has wanted to be and what America has been. That fracture is slavery, of course. To some extent it's still slavery, in that collectively we refuse to come to grips with the American fact of slavery.

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

In the end I write the novels I need to write when I need to write them.

I think most novelists I know, certainly including me, feel the novels choose them rather than vice-versa.

The last thing I want is that sense of artifice - rather I want the reader drawn into the story and lost in it and vested in it. So the emotional connection is everything, albeit a connection on my terms.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

The material dictates the approach.