I've Always Thought Things Were Absurd. It

Being Serious Is Serious Business In Fiction. It's Commercial Or Hoi Polloi In Fiction To Be Funny. It's Too Accessible To The Great Unwashed.

Humor Is A Very Big Part Of Life, And If You Exclude Humor From Your Book, You're Not Capturing A Very Important Part Of Human Experience.

If Someone Were Plucked From The Group And Given Those Responsibilities, They Might Find Themselves Growing More Aloof, Just By Virtue Of That Promotion. Suddenly The Group Culture Excludes You. I Saw This In My Own Working Life, And I Don't Think It's A Coincidence - I Sensed A Kind Of Loneliness In Middle Managers Especially.

I Believe People Think As A Group More Often Than We Might Realize Or Care To Admit. We Like To Believe That We Act As Individuals And Nothing More, But Time And Again - In Corporations And Business, In Politics And Religion, In Fashion And Culture, And In Friendships And Social Circles - We Think And Do As One.

The Whole Time I Was Writing, I Had To Fight My Normal Inclination To Be Funny, To Sort Of Patch Humor In, In Order To Convey All Of The Disruptions Of The Disease To The Family Dynamic, The Loss Of Individuality, The Impact On Professional Life, And The Sanity Of The Main Character. Of Course, That's Not To Say It Never Sneaks In; There's Some Black Comedy In There, Like When He Shows Up To Court Wearing A Bicycle Helmet And Won't Take It Off.