“When I hadn’t decided to go back to medicine, there was this existential pressure on the book to be worth existence. If this book is not expressing everything, what am I doing with my life? And if what I was attempting to do was trying to do something in the book to make life meaningful, it’s a pretty tall order. “Between 2004 and 2010, there were months I deeply wanted to return to medicine,” Mason said, “and months when I felt like I could keep writing forever. “I know the book will fit under the Library of Congress designation for ‘historical fiction,’ but if you want to learn about the First World War, I think there are many better things to read than my book.

Source: New York Times September 12, 2018 09:00 UTC