Quotable

From novelist Jess Walter:
"I keep a writing journal full of notes and observations that often find their way into my novels. In these journals I record the reflexive highs and lows that most writers suffer, alternating between thinking a piece of work is brilliant and that it is unreadable, mood swings so drastic that they seem like the diary of a man living on the coast who has no understanding of tides ('The water is disappearing!' or 'My God, it's a flood!')".

Walter is the author of the intensely chaotic, edgy and at times insightful novel "the zero", a tale of 9/11 post traumatic stress in individuals and organizations and a country. Good, but DeLillo's "Falling Man" is the benchmark for this topic, an austere but humane story with absolutely no resolution, the perfect ending.