Nonfiction requires logic and more careful thinking; sometimes I have to remind myself to be less self-conscious when I’m writing fiction. You have t… - Rachel Khong

Memory is everywhere, in the ways we think of ourselves and tell our stories. There are certain kinds of people who have more of a sense of who they are and their whole life story.

People are so obsessed over this question of what is and isn’t autobiography—and I think the question is especially popular with people who don’t read much fiction, because a novel seems so mysterious: “Where did this story come from?…

I wanted the book to inhabit quieter moments, and to be about these smaller interactions that reflect the way life often is. A tidy, definitive ending wouldn’t have been right for this book or the people in it; I wanted to leave the suggestion that life goes on, for all of these characters, even after the last page.