“Ireland starts for me with the end of 'The Dead,' which my father read...” — John Jeremiah Sullivan Quote

Ireland starts for me with the end of 'The Dead,' which my father read to me from his desk in his basement office in New Albany, Ind.

The city of Cork - the urban center, where all the shops and bars and everything are - is actually an island, a river island.

I want to stay in touch with what I have in common with my subjects, with the places where are equally implicated with whatever is wrong with the culture.

At 'GQ,' there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

We are angry about paying the highest income taxes and property taxes in the nation and getting less and less for it. We are angry about our incompetent, dysfunctional government that pays no attention to the desires of the people. We are angry about the cesspool of corruption and conflicts of interests and self-dealing that is Albany.

I'm hard-wired to view everything that Albany does through the lens of a local town, city, county official.

I'm not part of the friends-and-family club; I'm not part of the pay-to-play club; I'm not looking to get re-elected. I'm not looking to go to another office and fill my campaign coffers. I don't need any friends in Albany except the people of the state.

I don't read a lot of fiction, but one of my favorite authors is William Kennedy; his books, to me, almost read like historical dramas because the mythologies are so detailed as he wove fiction with the factual history of Albany.