It Was Sad And Fierce All At

Much Of The Way Books Get Classified Has To Do With Marketing Decisions. I Think It's More Useful To Think Of Literary Books And Sci-fi/fantasy Books As Existing On A Continuum. To Oppose Them, To Suggest That One Category Excludes The Other, Always Feels Bogus To Me. The Great Leonard Michaels Line Is "i Wanted Proximity To Darkness, Strangeness"? That's What I'd Say I Want From A Book, Regardless Of Where It Falls On The Fantastical Spectrum - That Suspense Connected To A Particular Human Character, Rather Than Just Some Mechanized Plot.

Madness, As I Understood It From Books, Meant A Person Who Was Open To The High White Whine Of Everything.

When You're A Kid, It's Hard To Tell The Innocuous Secrets From The Ones That Will Kill You If You Keep Them.

Hopes Were Wallflowers. Hopes Hugged The Perimeter Of A Dance Floor In Your Brain, Tugging At Their Party Lace, All Perfume And Hems And Doomed Expectation. They Fanned Their Dance Cards, These Guests That Pressed Against The Walls Of Your Heart.

Growing Up, Catholic Church Really Was Such An Incubator For My Imagination, Because All Of Those Mysteries Felt Embedded In This Insanely Green, Tropical Landscape: The Ocean Nearby, The Giant Banyan Trees. It All Felt Part Of One Seamless Mystery To Me.