Sam Brigger

Would you practice those stories as a kid?

Because if you knew you were going to have to tell a story, would you perform them in your mind to get them right?

So you went to boarding school as well?

But were you taught to lie there as well?

Wow, that's remarkable.

Well, because of their language or you're looking for tells or what are you doing?

Right.

So you've gotten rid of the thing you don't know.

Well, now I'm just questioning this whole interview.

You know, getting back to your father's family, his mother ran away from the family, abandoning him at five.

Do you think that it was hard for your father to figure out how to be a parent himself because he had no good role models?

I mean, it seems like he was a very loving dad, but he had to sort of figure it out from scratch.

You said that your father was haunted by his father and he tried to figure out what to make of his father through his writing.

And I was wondering that –

In some ways, if your father haunts you, not as an unwanted spirit, but because you chose to become a writer, because he has such a presence as a novelist.

When you're writing, do you sort of see him looking at your work over your shoulder?

He's a force ghost.

And your brother Tim passed away a few years after that, didn't he?

There was a collection of your father's.

Letters came out a few years ago.