Cameos & Totems

I don't know how many books are in me, but what I am going to do in the final story of the collection I have to turn in—somewhere someone will say "the known world." That book will be called All Aunt Hager's Children. And if I get around to doing a fourth book then in the final chapters of that someone or something will come up and say " All Aunt Hager's Children." I am a fan of Hitchcock movies. He just shows up and walks through for a few seconds. Ten or so years ago there was an essay in the New York Times Book Review by Phillip Roth, and he said he was going to school someplace, and he was in a cafeteria, and he came across a piece of paper, and he said he has taken the first word that was on that paper, and he used it as the first word for his novel. And the second word was used in the second novel. You never saw that? It was fascinating, if it was true.

- Edward P. Jones (interviewed at Identity Theory)