I wanted to prepare for a life of sudden transformations, of enemies singing at you across the stage dressed in the costume of a lover. - Alexander Chee

When an artist dies young there is always talk of the paintings unpainted, the books unwritten, which points to some imaginary storehouse of undone things and not to the imagination itself, the far richer treasure, lost. All of those works are the trail left behind, a path across time, left like the sun leaves gold on the sea: you can see it but you can't ever pick it up. What we lose with each death, though, is more like stars falling out of the sky and into the sea and gone. The something undone, the something that won't ever be done, always remains unendurable to consider. A permanent loss of possibility, so that what is left is only ever better than nothing, but the loss is limitless.

Speak to your dead. Write for your dead. Tell them a story. What are you doing with this life? Let them hold you accountable. Let them make you bolder or more modest or louder or more loving, whatever it is, but ask them in, listen, and then write. And when war comes — and make no mistake, it is already here — be sure you write for the living too. The ones you love, and the ones who are coming for your life. What will you give them when they get there?

I still didn't know I had written it to do this, but then I did.
I wish I could show you the roomful of people who've told me the novel is the story of their lives. Each of them as different as could be.
I still don't know if I'd be in that room.