History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.

So what this is is a 'road novel.' Eventually entire civilization (in the South) had been uprooted and people found security only in movement, ... That interested me enormously ... A friend from New Orleans, he said when he read the book, 'This is like Hurricane Katrina.'