I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.

I used to describe myself as a comic novelist, but my concerns seem to have darkened over the past few years.

My wife and I left New York when she got pregnant - we just thought it would be really hard to stay in the city.

I read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love.

Economically anxious, many parents see their children's accomplishments as a sort of insurance against the financial challenges of old age; high-achieving kids, this logic goes, will become high-earning adults and therefore be better able to help Mom and Dad pay for the assisted-living facility in a few decades.

I don't want to be the passively alert vegetable in the corner that takes in everything but can't communicate, which I think would suck a lot of life out of my family without giving very much to me.

When I was a child, the thing I wanted more than anything was to grow up and live in one house. Since my dad was in the Navy, that wasn't possible. Instead, I lived in a different home every couple of years.

Your father tells you a story when you're a kid, or your mother or your uncle or whoever it is. You sit there with your mouth open, and your mind goes to all these places they're telling you about that you've never seen, and you're agape. You just can't believe that things can happen like that - but it's just so direct.