For What Are The Words With Which

When I Complete A Novel I Set It Aside, And Begin Work On Short Stories, And Eventually Another Long Work. When I Complete That Novel I Return To The Earlier Novel And Rewrite Much Of It. In The Meantime The Second Novel Lies In A Desk Drawer.

I'm Drawn To Write About Upstate New York In The Way In Which A Dreamer Might Have Recurring Dreams. My Childhood And Girlhood Were Spent In Upstate New York, In The Country North Of Buffalo And West Of Rochester. So This Part Of New York State Is Very Familiar To Me And, With Its Economic Difficulties, Has Become Emblematic Of Much Of American Life.

You Wake Up One Morning, Those Years Are Gone. There's A Comfort In This Fact Perhaps. I Want To Think That There Must Be Comfort In All Facts We Can't Alter.

To Claim - To Claim Repeatedly - That You Are Innocent Of What It Is Claimed By Others That You Have Done, Or Might Have Done, Or Are In Some Quarters Strongly Suspected Of Having Done, Is Never Enough Unless Others, Numerous Others, Will Say It For You.

For Some Reason, Voters Can Be Brainwashed, And They Vote Sometimes Against Their Own Best Interests, Let Alone Voting Against The Interests Of People Who Need Them, Like People Who Are Disenfranchised And People Who Are Poor And So Forth.