Zachary Lazar Quotes

What’s invaluable about actually going to the places you want to write about are the random accidental things that happen. Random, accidental detail is the best way to make a setting convincing. You can of course invent your own random details, and sometimes I will also mash up real incidents.

In hindsight, I must have been looking for a way to write about Jewishness that somehow managed to minimize irony and self-deprecation.

I love the rabbit hole. I spend a lot of time looking at images, Google mapping, etc. I also love to read court transcripts, FBI files, stuff like that. You go through vast, boring stretches, but the voices are always so fascinating and slowly a story begins to emerge. It’s very much like playing detective.

It’s changed dramatically in our lifetimes. Communism is gone, so now the global war is framed in religious terms. Fundamentalist religion is rampant on all sides of this war. It casts a very dark shadow over non-fundamentalist religion.