When novelists talk about what they’re working on, they rarely mention subject matter. Plot, theme, symbolism, character — those staples of English class — few of which have much to do with literature, don’t come up. Richard Ford has written thousands of passages about the New Jersey real estate agent Frank Bascombe, describing his marriage, his divorce, the death of his son, his health scares and his armchair philosophizing, but when I asked Ford what motivated him to write those books, he replied, “Oh, I just felt like I wanted to write something first-person, present tense.” He didn’t have to explain this to me. The right voice, once discovered, guides everything the writer does and supplies all necessary information and insight — often enough, things you didn’t think you knew.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES