While Writing This Book [lincoln In The

I'm A Liberal And I'm Left Of Gandhi And I Don't Like Trump.

All Storytelling Is Kind Of That - There's A Bit Of Text That You Put Pressure On That Spits Out Some Desire That A Character Has And Then You Follow That. The Other Part Is That Every Scene Raises An Expectation In The Reader's Mind - That's Part Of Its Job Is To Make You Look In And Be Curious.

Whatever Your Supposed Politics Are - Left, Right - If You Put It In A Human Connection, Most People Will Rise To The Occasion And Feel The Human Pain In A Way That They Might Not If It Was Presented In A More Conceptual Way.

For Me, The Fiction Writer's Job Is To Take The Small, Stupid Process Of Learning To Use An Iphone - And Suddenly You're The Guy Who's Asking Your Daughter, "when I Go On Facebook, Can It See Me?"

As Much As We - In A Revisionist Way - Tell Ourselves That We've Always Been A Righteous Country With A Couple Of Swerves Off The Path, We Need To Look Back And See That We've Always Also Been A Racist Country And Have Had A Tendency Towards Banal Aggressiveness. The Thing That's Alarming Is Not So Much That A Few People In America At The Top Are Initiating These Crazy Policies, But That The Middle Is Willing To Go There Too. There's A Strange Movement Of The Middle To This Position Of Banal Aggressiveness.