It was only after two years’ work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a...

Time and death: It’s the ultimate vision of an artist at the end of everything. It’s just what’s there. It was not something I planned to do.

When I work, I’m just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that’s not familiar. But I’m not trying to manipulate reality....

It’s my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I’ve written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don’t...

Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam.

I was too much of a Bronx kid to read Emerson or Hawthorne.

Doesn’t seem quite real. It’s not meaningful. I can’t quite imagine myself being 73. That’s the age my father was! [Laughter.] How can I be his age? It’s weird.

But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [… N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get...