Dear Jeffrey Eugenides,

Are you planning a new book? What? When?

— Michael Z.

Dear Michael,

Not just planning, actually sitting down and writing. At my usual, frenzied, leisurely pace. I don't like to talk much about what I'm working on, but I can tell you, Michael, that it's a very different book from Middlesex, more tightly dramatized. The majority of the story takes place over a few days, rather than eight decades, and so the whole thing is like a snowball rolling downhill. This, I should mention, is something I don't quite know how to do. I'll have to learn how to do it. Learning how constitutes the entire effort of this book. There are lots of characters and a great deal of dramatized action, of scene-making. It'll be finished when it's finished. I've also been writing short stories and am slowly amassing (to use a grand term for a small output) a collection.

— Jeffrey Eugenides