I grew up in Swaledale, in Iowa. Its population was 220 when I was growing up, and it's probably 150 now. I lived in town and sometimes worked on the farms outside of town in the summers.

The past has an undeniable grip on everyone, except, perhaps, amnesiacs.

I tend to write about towns because that's what I remember best. You can put a boundary on the number of characters you insert into a small town. I tend to create a lot of characters, so this is a sort of restraint on the character building I do for a novel.

I don't think of my characters as bumbling. I think that trouble is what drives a novel, both big troubles and small troubles, and whatever people try to do in life, there are a series of stumbling-blocks in the way, and I think that makes for interesting reading. I think of them as doing their best with the roadblocks that they're given.

I never deviated from my grim determination to someday have all the money I needed and wanted.

While I can see how the government has, at times, wasted taxpayers' money, and I can admit that too often its programs are ineffective, I also can see the good that government does.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

Escrow accounts are an important tool for homeowners to the reduce the risk of mortgage default on high-priced loans. Millions of Americans, including my wife and I, utilize these accounts to make monthly payments towards the annual financial obligations that come with homeownership like taxes and insurance.