Do you knock on wood?

You must absolutely knock an even number of times. If you knock once or five times you have damned yourself for eternity.

You just spilled the salt. Do you toss a pinch over your shoulder?

Don’t be childish.

What is your most treasured comfort meal?

Yellow rice, black beans, white vinegar, and an adventure of hot sauces.

What is a species you feel is frequently misunderstood? 

The mosquito. It’s just trying to live, like you and me. No matter. They must be destroyed.

In what environment do you feel most at home?

Navigating dense, elbowy pedestrian traffic in Midtown Manhattan.

My favorite tree in the world is _____.

The mature, gargantuan sycamore tree whose gracious canopy filled my office window until last year when my savage neighbors chopped it down, limb by magnificent limb, so they could dig a swimming pool. One day I looked up to see a man rappelling from the canopy, hacking away. It was like watching an elephant be butchered. A few months later the monsters sold the property. The new neighbors don’t even use the pool.

Nature would be better without _____.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide in excess of 280 parts per million.

What is something you’re looking forward to?

Swimming in Echo Lake in Maine this summer. Clear, cool water, marred only by the occasional glimpse of the rising shield of a snapping turtle. But all the best lakes have carnivorous turtles.

What was your last memorable animal encounter?

The black crows in my neighborhood in New Orleans have made headlines recently for divebombing people. A local reporter livestreamed her own attack. A few months ago, I heard a loud gruesome smack on my roof. I came outside to find a dazed crow on the ground, one of its wings clearly broken. I tried to determine the most ethical course of action. Then I guess I went inside for a bit . . . to think it through. When I came back it was gone. I figured the worst. About a month later, however, it walked down the street past my front door. It seemed calm, unrushed, just strolling, with a slight hop in its gait. Its wing was disfigured and it obviously couldn’t fly but it had figured out how to survive.

Do you have any unusual hobbies, hidden talents, or superpowers you’d like to share?

I am a pretty good canoeist if you want to know the truth.

If you could, regardless of the local climate, reach out of your kitchen window a pluck a fruit from a tree, bush, or plant, what would it be?

A tree tomato. A Bogotán friend just introduced this to me. It was a revelation: the missing link between tomatoes and slightly sweeter and slightly sour fruits like kiwi and guava. I will never again be stumped when my children ask me whether a tomato is a vegetable or fruit. I’ve tasted the evidence.

If you could make pancakes with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

My son. We recently hit upon a good trick for the batter: two droplets of vanilla.

Would you jump at an opportunity to go into space? Why or why not?

No way. I’ve written a lot about how space travel, and even the dream of space travel, makes people go completely insane.

What are some of your favorite words?

The regional winds: the Mistral, the Cape Doctor, the Diablo, the Bora, the Witch of November.

Who are some of your heroes or heroines, real or fictional?

The Triestine novelist Italo Svevo, who is both real and fictional (a persona created by Ettore Schmitz, a rootless Jew living between cultures and nations and languages, who wrote novels that appeared autobiographical but were the products of his imagination).

Who is a character from literature or film with whom you intensely identify? 

Duddy Kravitz. I’m still looking for my land.

What is something new you’ve done recently?
Taken a statin.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve witnessed or experienced in nature?
On my very first camping trip when I was ten years old, I was awoken just after I’d fallen asleep by my Czech counselor shining a flashlight into my tent and screaming “Bear!” We were in the northern Maine woods. Because my friends and I thought it would be “cool” to pitch our tent far from the others, much deeper in the forest, we had a lot of distance to cover to return safely to our van. I’m not sure exactly how far—five miles? It was a starless night, zero visibility. We ran blindly, deliriously, through the darkness, hoping not to smash into the trunk of a tree—or into the chest of a large bear standing straight up, fangs bared, eyes glistening, claws raised. I’ve loved camping ever since.

Are you optimistic about the future?

I am pragmatically pessimistic and constitutionally optimistic. This leads to a lot of cognitive dissonance.

What is a smell that makes you stop in your tracks?

Dead possum.

Do you have a writing/art-making routine?

I do everything else I can possibly think of—fold clothes, fix the vacuum cleaner, water the bromeliads—until my anxiety reaches a frenzy of self-loathing and then I can write.

Which of your book’s subjects or characters haunts you the most?

Virginia, the protagonist in Cloudthief. If things broke differently, I could imagine ending up living in a storage unit—not out of poverty but an unchecked desire to disappear. While writing the novel I spent a lot of time reading about people who pursue solitary existences: Jane Brox’s Silence, Michael Finkel’s The Stranger in the Woods, Fenton Johnson’s At the Center of All Beauty, Roger Shattuck’s The Forbidden Experiment.

When you enter a bookstore, where do you head first?

In New Orleans, the shelf devoted to Louisiania. Elsewhere I gravitate to crime fiction and the overlooked section usually called something like “science and environmental writing,” searching out books that could be stocked in both categories. The Finkel and Shattuck books would surely qualify.

What is a book that you loved reading recently?

Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood.

Where did you grow up?

Midtown Manhattan, baby.

Are you the same person you were as a child?

I’ve been the same person since I was seventeen, for better and worse.

What song or album reminds you of high school?

The Pixies’ Doolittle.

What did an average Friday night look like for you as a teenager? 

A friend’s house, pizza, an hour at Blockbuster to figure out which thriller to rent. I didn’t run with the ‘fast’ crowd.

If authors had walk-up songs like professional baseball players do, what would yours be?

“Orlando,” Exploded View.

Okay, but what if you’re in a situation where you simply must sing karaoke. What’s your song? 

“His Latest Flame,” Elvis Presley.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

New Orleans.

What would you like to be most remembered for? 

Being a good father and husband.

What flower would you want pinned to your breast after you die?

Moss.

If you could come back as any organism, who or what would you be?

A person who could remain in the lives of my children in a helpful but unobtrusive manner. A librarian, say. Or an appliance repairman.

Bring Cloudthief home today!