Our Sense Of Self Is A Kind

I Usually Have More Than One Thing I'm Working On At Once - I've Been Working On Three Different Novels. When I Get Stuck On One, I Hop Back And Forth.

When I Was Younger I Was Attracted To People Who Had That Kind Of Artifice - People Who Were Incredibly Polished And Had A Complex Persona That Always Seemed To Be Turned On. I Was Really Interested In These Kinds Of People Because I Felt So Unformed.

I Start With An Image, Then I Go From The Image Toward Exploring The Situation. Then I Write A Scene, And From The Scene I Find The Character, From The Character I Find The Larger Plot. It's Like Deductive Reasoning - I Start With The Smaller Stuff And Work Backward.

It's Not Like It Ruined My Life, I Was Going To Say, But Then I Didn't. Because It Occurred To Me That Maybe It Had Ruined My Life, In A Kind Of Quiet Way--a Little Lie, Probably Not So Vital, Insidiously Separating Me From Everyone I Loved.

Julie Orringer Is The Real Thing, A Breathtaking Chronicler Of The Secrets And Cruelties Underneath The Surface Of Middle-class American Life. These Are Terrific Stories-wise, Compassionate And Haunting.