…but this interview on The Paris Review’s blog makes me want to read Caribou Island. I loved the last question and his response (I find it fascinating that there’s a physical place where his dream life resides. I think all of us have this, whether we realize or not.):

Is there a physical place that’s a touchstone for you?

Yes, in New Zealand. My wife and I bought some land there seven years ago. Someday soon we’ll finally be able to build a small house on it and live there. I think of it every single day and long for it and want to be there, so it’s taken on a really powerful presence in my psychology. It represents the life that I want, a place to ease into and relax, my desire for peace and belonging, to go for a hike every day. It’s seventeen acres on a rolling hillside, with native totara trees, which look like bushy Christmas trees, and grass in between. You can walk quite across the property and up onto a ridge, and look out on these exposed rocks. That’s really where my dream life is, right there in that place.