read the most, but i will tell you an author i always go to when i need to do something of that, chekhovnever fail you. -- the most unforced voice in literature some of the most truthful, honest voice that has ever come out of literature. and that is in translation. i don't read russian. charlie: who else? e.l.: well, i go back to the 19th century americans. "moby dick" is an unbelievably great work. that's an enormous achievement, enormous achievement. charlie: have you achieved what you set out to do? e.l.: i don't know what i set out to do. i set out to write and it's funny -- someone pointed out to me a couple of years ago that you could line them up and, in effect now, 150 years of american history, visionary rendering of american history. if you wanted to do that and it's nothing i plan, but you start with the march and the civil war and my first novel took place in dakota territory in the 1870's and then the waterworks during boss tweed tossed rain in new york city and then ragtime, the turn-of-the-century. i have three books that take place in the 30's. and then "the book of dani