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Q. Why the title Brain Work?

A. I mean it in several ways, the work the brain does in everyday life, the hard brain work of writing, how brain work is consciousness itself. Originally the book was subtitled "Stories in Search of a Soul," as that's the main concern of the book for me: does the soul exist or is it merely the brain at work? Is the soul real, or does the brain manufacture the sensation of its existence?

Q. Charles Baxter writes of your book "that it takes a visionary world seriously." What's he mean?

A. I think he says that because many of my characters see things, that is, have visions, that most of us don’t. And they’re not dismissed, not the characters or their visions, but studied and probed. They just might be sharing something with us, about faith, about the soul and grace, that we ought to take seriously.

Just after writing those words he states that I never try to simplify or to explain the mysteries of the soul/brain. I hope he is right. More than just about anything I have not wanted to be reductive or to force my opinions on anyone. I really do believe the old Einstein saying about the need for things to be made as simple as possible but never simpler than they really are. I hope that's what I've done.

Q. We all have brains, of course, and most of us are interested in them. But you seem more obsessed than most.

A. Well, it's the brain and the soul both I'm obsessed with. I was raised Catholic and the Mass was still celebrated in Latin when I was growing up. I was in awe of the sounds of the words, the smell of incense swinging on a chain, the chants. I didn't have a particularly hospitable home life and the promise of eternal bliss was quite compelling. Then I hit adolescence hard and Catholism went into a two-decades long nosedive. I replaced it with psychology, which I thought was a science at the time but later decided was just as religious as Catholicism. I mean, there are three hundred brands of psychotherapy, at least! The only way to choose which one is "right" is through faith. Ironically, in the meantime, neurology was becoming quite a science. I started reading about the new knowledge we have about the brain and its chemical secrets. It never ceases to amaze me.

Q. Okay, let's turn to something more concrete: Who have been your influences?

A. Carver and Dubus without a doubt and in that order. The flat style is harder to master than a lot of people realize, but to the extent I've been successful with it I owe enormously to them. O' Conner, though I don't think anyone would see her in my work. The absurdists, too, like Beckett and Barthelme and Albee. In poetry, Bidart. Non-fiction has probably influenced me as much as anything. I never would have written this book had I not read Francis Crick's The Astonishing Hypothesis. My proudest acknowledgment of my work is a letter from him about one of my stories he read. Oliver Sacks, too, has affected me profoundly.

Q. You say “Filling the Spaces Between Us” is your favorite story in the collection. Why?

A. That particular story just seems like the best writing I’ve done. It’s digressive, sure, but for good reason: it’s covering so much territory in time and theme. It’s one of those stories that feels “in the zone” to me, to use a term from athletics; I just never felt a need to force anything while I was writing it, and it’s a fairly long story. It also asks the big questions: is love just chemical reactions? Does it matter as long as it’s felt? Is our notion of a soul nothing more than a brain illusion?

Q. Why the short story form? Why not make that story, or any others in the book, into a novel?

A. You are asking the question agents and editors have to ask and I wish I had a better answer. One of these days, I promise them and I promise myself I will finish a novel. I don't know why it's so hard for me to work up the strength to write one. I'm not a lazy person. It's something about the spreadoutedness that hasn't worked for me yet. I still try, get halfway through with one and go back to stories. I really like the form, I prefer to read stories over novels. And commercially speaking, that's too bad.

I started as a poet, and not a narrative poet either. Raymond Carver did too and he never finished a novel, at least to my knowledge. Charles Baxter started as a poet and then, like Carver, went on to be a master of short fiction. He was able to work up to the novel form, but I still like his short fiction better. I just like short stories. Too bad most of the reading public doesn't agree with my preference.

Q. How difficult is it to write a thematic collection, versus writing a collection of stories about various themes?

A. Pretty hard. It started out being a collection of my best stories; then it became a collection about masculinity. Over the years I wrote more and more stories about the brain and the soul and religion. So I took out whatever wasn’t related. Now I’m writing a collection about death, attitudes towards it, definitions it has in our lives, and so on. It’s not just a matter of thematics, either, but the tone needs to feel right from story to story, and the order needs to make some sense. But I like it. It feels a bit like novel to me once done, though I know of course it’s not.

Q. You write of people with brain injuries, Alzheimers, manic depression, and especially people with religious guilt and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Why these particular problems and how realistic is their portrayal?

A. Well two problems—Catholic guilt and OCD—are very much mine so I'd say they are incredibly realistic, often actual parts of my life or very, very close. I was in fact in four years of therapy for OCD. Ironically, it never took away a single symptom. Years later with the advent of the new psychiatric meds, I am doing much better. For the other problems, Alzheimers, brain trauma, and so forth, I did the best I could by doing research, talking to a psychologist friend of mine at Johns Hopkins, and so forth. And my first masters degree was in psychology. But sometimes, for the sake of narrative, I've used some poetric license and exaggerated what is likely to occur. The lady with Alzheimers in "A Walk Outside" would probably not drift in and out of reality so quickly in real life, except in very rare instances. Since it's fiction, I give myself the freedom to explore the rare instance, too. All in all, I think I've been pretty faithful to real life.