Morag Fraser

She says really interesting things.

One point in Jack, when the two main characters in Jack are Jack and his wife,

Black wife, Della.

Della says something about Hamlet.

She's very well read.

She's a schoolteacher.

She said, in Hamlet, it seems as though there were stories behind the play that we just got glimpses of.

I think that's a very interesting way of describing these four novels.

There are stories behind the play in any particular novel that we just get glimpses of.

Then the next novel, you go to a different place or a different character and you see that one fleshed out.

With Jack, for example, sometimes you really can't stand him.

But if you read Gilead, you understand what's going through his head.

So it's a very interesting construct.

She said at some point when she was asked why she wrote just another one, she said, Jack's voice was in my head.

I hadn't let it go.

That's why I'm not even sure that it's gone yet, because he's a very, very mystifying, fascinating character.

He lives somewhere between St.

Louis, Memphis, when he's sometimes there, for a while he goes to Chicago.

Those states where, in most places, miscegenation is against the law, so a mixed-race marriage could get you into jail.

In fact, he can't even get married.