When I'm writing, I'm in an isolation chamber. I'm not one to think about that outside world stuff when I'm writing.

To me, 'The End of the Jews' - both the title and the novel itself - is about the end of pat, uncritical ways of understanding oneself in the world.

The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.

Being Jewish is a big part of my artistic sensibility and my humor... I think it gives me a certain take on the world on a literary level.

My parents were distrustful of the outside world. They didn't think much good came out of it... The outside world was this strange place that was not so much dangerous as not as interesting as what went on in the house.

The thing I love about being a novelist is that with each project, you invent a new world. You approach it with a different set of aesthetic and structural ideas, and you grapple with a different series of problems in figuring out how to tell the story. And yet there are certain concerns that stay constant.