She Had Listened To Him, Partly Sympathetic,

And Yet She Could Not Forgive Herself. Even As An Adult, She Wished Only That She Could Go Back And Change Things: The Ungainly Things She’d Worn, The Insecurity She’d Felt, All The Innocent Mistakes She Made.

You Remind Me Of Everything That Followed.

I Always Think First About The Nature Of The Story. When I Had The Idea For 'the Namesake,' I Felt That It Had To Be A Novel - It Couldn't Work As A Story.

I Am Drawn To Any Story That Makes Me Want To Read From One Sentence To The Next. I Have No Other Criterion.

I've Seen Novels That Have Grown Out Of One Story In A Collection. But It Hasn't Occurred To Me To Take Any Of Those Stories And Build On Them. They Seem Very Finished For Me, So I Don't Feel Like Going Back And Dredging Them Up.