from an interview

When I wrote about him, I wrote about a man I wanted. I wrote about a man who was complicated and wonderful, who was selfish and critical and funny and wounded and sad. I wrote a man into being whom I'd written before. I'd written him many years ago, in actual days, where our paths actually crossed. I knew him, yes, but not as I said I knew him. I knew him briefly and romantically -- and forgettably and regretfully and truly. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to spend real time with him, together, because the time we spent was always fleeting and fraught and charged with his impending departure. He had me, and he had his real life. He had his home in a wooded suburb and his new wife and his children from his first marriage. And I had, I had …