It's Easy To Set A Story Anywhere

The Most Compelling Narrative, Expressed In Sentences With Which I Have No Chemical Reaction, Or An Adverse One, Leaves Me Cold.

The First Sentence Of A Book Is A Handshake, Perhaps An Embrace. Style And Personality Are Irrelevant. They Can Be Formal Or Casual. They Can Be Tall Or Short Or Fat Or Thin. They Can Obey The Rules Or Break Them. But They Need To Contain A Charge. A Live Current, Which Shocks And Illuminates.

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.

It Is A Magical Thing For A Handful Of Words, Artfully Arranged, To Stop Time. To Conjure A Place, A Person, A Situation, In All Its Specificity And Dimensions. To Affect Us And Alter Us, As Profoundly As Real People And Things Do.

On The Screen I Saw Tanks Rolling Through Dusty Streets, And Fallen Buildings, And Forests Of Unfamiliar Trees Into Which East Pakistani Refugees Had Fled, Seeking Safety Over The Indian Border.