When I Sit Down To Write, I

Relationships Do Not Preclude Issues Of Morality.

In Fiction, Plenty Do The Job Of Conveying Information, Rousing Suspense, Painting Characters, Enabling Them To Speak. But Only Certain Sentences Breathe And Shift About, Like Live Matter In Soil.

It Is A Magical Thing For A Handful Of Words, Artfully Arranged, To Stop Time. To Conjure A Place, A Person, A Situation, In All Its Specificity And Dimensions. To Affect Us And Alter Us, As Profoundly As Real People And Things Do.

I Dream Of Writing A Book Like Lovers Some Day. It Is So Spare But So Rich. It Is History Made Intimate, And A Masterpiece Of Compression.

...that In Spite Of Living In A Mansion An American Is Not Above Wearing A Pair Of Secondhand Pants, Bought For Fifty Cents.