If certain books are to be termed 'immigrant fiction,' what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn't agree with me.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn't matter what you've done before.

The sky was different, without color, taut and unforgiving. But the water was the most unforgiving thing, nearly black at times, cold enough, I knew, to kill me, violent enough to break me apart. The waves were immense, battering rocky beaches without sand. The farther I went, the more desolate it became, more than any place I'd been, but for this very reason the landscape drew me, claimed me as nothing had in a long time.

On the technical side, I hope that my writing is evolving and maturing, ripening, deepening.

I always wanted to grow up in a house full of books, English books, and I wanted the sort of fireplaces that worked, overstuffed chairs, that whole kind of fantasy of a bookish New England life. So the library gave me that; for the hours that I was there, I was surrounded by that atmosphere that I craved in my life.