Cassie McCullagh

It's actually like taking some kind of medication in this book.

There's been writing about it being part of this annihilation of self style, which I think you've both alluded to.

And sometimes I was reminded of the Wim Wenders film about the angels listening in to people's lives because she isn't there anymore.

And yet she's almost kind of messianic in a way because people just pour into her their own ideas of life.

And she's this mute witness, which is quite beautiful.

And yet when she does speak, every sentence is full of such meaning.

And here's just a couple, here's just two extraordinary sentences.

She's talking to this young journalist who's asking, why does she doesn't move?

to where it's warmer because her life seems so damp, which is kind of lovely and funny too.

But she says, My son once admitted to me, I said, that when he was younger, he desperately wished he could belong to a different family, such as the family of a friend of his, with whom at a certain period he had spent a lot of his time.

This family was big and noisy and easygoing, and there was always room for him at the table where huge, comforting meals were served and where everything was discussed but nothing examined.

so that there was no danger of passing through the mirror, as he put it, into the state of painful self-awareness where human fictions lose their credibility.

People rush to fill the vacuum.

Where do you think this is set?

Where do you think Kudos is set?

Because Kate and I have a few theories, but it doesn't seem to be clear to us.

I only thought there was one.

I only thought there was one location.

Yeah, I thought we were in Portugal.

I just thought we were in Portugal too.