Michael Connelly

Doctorow that I've read many times.

And it's a historical.

It was everything I didn't want to read when I was voraciously going through contemporary crime fiction.

And there's a trial in that book, but it's not a...

I wouldn't call it a crime novel.

It's a literary novel.

That forced me down the road of all his stuff.

I'm sure you've heard this many times before.

Kurt Vonnegut was probably the most influential writer on me as a teenager.

Just loved his stuff.

Just, it's like, I don't know, his imagination, I think.

And kind of like there was no bounds to what he would do in fiction.

He would draw a picture if he wanted to.

And it was just unbounded imagination in his books.

At the same time, you know, books with a message and books that had a sadness to them.

You know, I've always been kind of drawn to them.

Not that I'm a sad person, but that those kind of books affect me.

Well, I'm also someone who loves a good scare, or eeriness, I think, more than scare.

I love books that have this...

aura of eeriness.