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Literary fiction is kept alive by women. Women read more fiction, period.

Far more women read fiction than men, and because of this, novels have become marginalised as serious texts.

I wonder if novels work for women because they give us a safe place to talk about our ish.

I write contemporary fiction, and that is what my readers want to read.

Certainly, there is a tendency to lump women who write similar types of books together, and it's not just in crime, is it? Women's fiction is supposedly a whole genre of itself. There's no male equivalent.

I don't think I'm interested in writing women's novels anymore.

Most of my writer friends are women, and they're all extremely talented, so of course I think the state of contemporary fiction for women is pretty great. Which is to say there is a ton of amazing work out there. These women are writing hard. There's much to be said. We're on it, chief.

Some very plausible stuff is being written by women in a way that most men are not doing.

I'm not an especially male novelist, but I think men are better at writing about men, and the same is true for women. Reading Saul Bellow is a revelation, but he can't write women. There are exceptions, like Marilynne Robinson's 'Gilead,' but generally, I think it's true.

It's a woman's book but I think the men will read it too.