But I'm Thinking About 12

Tim O'brien's Book About Vietnam, The Things They Carried, Has Won Every Award, Is Studied In College And Is Considered To Be Definitive. But It's Fiction.

I Went To Public School All My Life And All Through College And I Liked It.

I'm Never A Fan Of The Sociopathic Kind Of Reviewing, People Who Are Sort Of Self-immolating And Have Social Problems Or Whatever, And Let It Out In Literary-criticism Form. I Just Feel Like Book Reviewing Should Be Respectful And Calm And Not Filled With Bile.

I Always Had A Hard Time With Fiction. It Does Feel Like Driving A Car In A Clown Suit. You're Going Somewhere, But You're In Costume, And You're Not Really Fooling Anybody. You're The Guy In Costume, And Everybody's Supposed To Forget That And Go Along With You. Obviously, It Can Work, It Works All The Time - Well, It Doesn't Always Work. Still, No Matter What, I'm Always Looking At The Form And Addressing It, Not Ignoring It.

Again The Greatest Use Of A Human Was To Be Useful. Not To Consume, Not To Watch, But To Do Something For Someone Else That Improved Their Life, Even For A Few Minutes.