There Are Always Suicides Among People Who

The Characters In My Novels, From The Very First One, Are Always On Some Quixotic Effort Of Attempting To Control Something That Is Uncontrollable - Some Element Of The World That Is Essentially Random And Out Of Control.

I Thought Some Of The Stories Were Neat; I Liked Some Of The Liturgy And Some Of The Songs. If You're A Writer You Have Some Inclination To Pay Attention. I Didn't Just Tune It Out And Think About Baseball. So, It Had An Effect On Me.

Sometimes That's A Year, Sometimes It's 18 Months, Where All I'm Doing Is Taking Notes. I'm Reconstructing The Story From The Back To The Front So That I Know Where The Front Is.

Before I Began The Cider House Rules, I Thought I Wanted To Write About A Father-son Relationship That Was Closer, More Conflicted, And Ultimately More Loving, Than Most. Then I Began To Think Of A Relationship Between An Old Orphanage Director And An Unadoptable Orphan - A Kid Who Goes Out Into The World And Fails And Keeps Coming Back, So That The Old Guy Ends Up With Someone He's Got To Keep.

I Take People Very Seriously. People Are All I Take Seriously, In Fact. Therefore, I Have Nothing But Sympathy For How People Behave - And Nothing But Laughter To Console Them With.