The Fading Light Is Us, And We

I Was Very, Very Sick When I Was Growing Up In Russia. The Ambulance Constantly Came To Our House. I Had Horrible Asthma That Is Easily Treated In America, But They Didn't Even Have Inhalers Back In Russia.

... I'm The Fortieth-ugliest Man In This Bar. But So What! So What! What If Someday She Lets Me Kiss Each One Of Her Freckles Again? She Has Like A Million. But Every One Of Them Means Something To Me. Isn't This How People Used To Fall In Love? I Know We're Living In Rubenstein's America, Like You Keep Saying. But Doesn't That Just Make Us Even More Responsible For Each Other's Fates? I Mean, What If Eunice And I Just Said No To All This. To This Bar. To This Facing. The Two Of Us. What If We Just Went Home And Read Books To Each Other?

Don't Be Pretentious Is My First Advice To Young Writers. This Is The Big Problem - Just Because You're Getting An Mfa Doesn't Mean You Have To Write For The Academy. Be True To Your Personality. Don't Temper Your Personality Down With Words. Don't Build Defensive Fortresses Around Yourself With Words - Words Are Your Friends.

My Parents Were Constantly Afraid They Would Lose Their Jobs. The Idea That We Were Always A Paycheck Away From Disaster Was Drilled Into Me.

Usually, With A Novel, You Start With No Idea What To Do Because Your Job Is To Create Convincing Characters And Then They Just Run Around Getting Crazy. The Problem With Writing A Memoir, Obviously, Is You Can't Do That Because You Sort Of Know What's Going To Happen. Because You're The Character.