Life Is Not So Much About Beginnings

We're Tortured, A Lot Of Us, Believe Me.

I Think I'm Like Most Novelists In That My Books Have Gotten Farther And Farther Away From Autobiography The Longer I've Been Writing Them.

I'm Boggled By The Idea Of Being An Only Child. I Know Nothing At All (i'm Happy To Say) About Having Had A Cold And Withholding Mother, About Being Divorced. The More I've Been Writing Novels, Each Novel I've Written Has Become Successively Less Grounded In Anything Approaching Autobiography.

As I Said, I Had This Fabulous College Education. At College I Met The Man To Whom I've Been Married For 34 Years And Who Is The Father Of Those Three Kids. I Seriously Considered Going To Another College, And My Life Would Have Been Completely Different In Every Way.

It Makes Me Angry To Think That . . . Female Sanitation Workers Will Spend Their Days Doing A Job Most Of Their Co-workers Think They Can't Handle, And Then They Will Go Home And Do Another Job Most Of Their Co-workers Don't Want.