When You're In A Place, The Details

Kelly Link's Prose Is Conveyed In Details So Startling And Fine That You Work Up A Sweat Just Waiting For The Next Sentence To Land. This Is Why We Read, Crave, Need, Can't Live Without Short Stories.

Everything Necessary To Understand My Grandfather Lies Between Two Stories: The Story Of The Tiger’s Wife, And The Story Of The Deathless Man. These Stories Run Like Secret Rivers Through All The Other Stories Of His Life – Of My Grandfather’s Days In The Army; His Great Love For My Grandmother; The Years He Spent As A Surgeon And A Tyrant Of The University. One, Which I Learned After His Death, Is The Story Of How My Grandfather Became A Man; The Other, Which He Told To Me, Is Of How He Became A Child Again.

What Inspires Me Most To Write Is The Act Of Traveling.

When I Was Eight Years Old, I Wrote A Paragraph-long Short Story About A Goat On My Mother's Hundred-pound, Black-and-white-screen Laptop. The Story Came About Largely Because I Liked The Way The Word 'goat' Looked On The Page, But I Decided Then And There That I Wanted To Be A Writer. That Desire Never Changed.

Suddenness," He Says. " You Do Not Prepare, You Do Not Explain, You Do Not Apologize. Suddenly, You Go. And With You, You Take All Contemplation, All Consideration Of Your Own Departure. All The Suffering That Would Have Come From Knowing Comes After You Are Gone, And You Are Not A Part Of It.