It turns out that my memory is just not that great, so for specific scenes with people doing stuff, sometimes I'd have the details all wrong or I couldn't remember what happened exactly, so I just let that be.

This is odd, but there are certain things that are really embarrassing to talk about - one is my job and the success that I've had in it, and the other is money.

But that incessant drive to be out there in the literary universe that was important to me when I was in my twenties, like going to a Paris Review party or whatever, that seems totally irrelevant now.

I turned forty, and I'm finally going to get married and maybe have a kid.