The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.
At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood.
I continued to protect him with my silence.
For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.
I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level.
Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones.
The big dramas that fascinate me are the quiet ones that happen behind closed doors in so-called ordinary families.
I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.
There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets.
I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot.
The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.
Wherever it is you make your home, there is always this other place, this other person, calling to you. Come to me. Come back.
I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.
It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.
Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it’s like to be 12 years old.
One of the sad realities of being a parent is that the same stuff you know is exciting, educational, and enriching in your child’slife is often messy, smelly and exhausting to deal with.
The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I’ve written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.
The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell.
I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn’t paid for what she writes.
Imagine if you succeeded in making the world perfect for your children what a shock the rest of life would be for them.