Any setting can be a good setting for a novel. Chris Pavone More Quotes by Chris Pavone More Quotes From Chris Pavone The best hiding spots are not the most hidden; they're merely the least searched. Chris Pavone visibility hiding spots And everyone's in the same situation, basically: we're all finding our separate ways, together. Chris Pavone situation together way But if you move fast, you can have your freedom. Chris Pavone your-freedom ifs moving Lexicon grabbed me with the opening lines, and never let go. An absolutely thrilling story, featuring an array of compelling characters in an eerily credible parallel society, punctuated by bouts of laugh-out-loud humor. Chris Pavone letting-go character laughing What is it we want out of travel? Is it to take snapshots of ourselves in front of famous monuments, surrounded by other tourists? To eat unfamiliar food chosen from unintelligible menus? To earn frequent-flier miles? No. It's to glimpse what life is like somewhere else. Chris Pavone monuments food life travel I loved editing, and being a cookbook editor is a really a great job. Chris Pavone loved job great editing Expats are a self-selecting group of outgoing, confident people - if you're not those things, you probably don't choose this adventure - and the lifestyle is very conducive to making fast, close friends. Chris Pavone you friends adventure people I worked as a draftsman for the Department of Environmental Protection, and as a teacher, in N.Y.C.; at a big bank and a small ad agency, a tiny law firm and a few giant ones; as a cashier and a dishwasher; preparing deli sandwiches and stringing tennis racquets and pruning evergreens into conical Christmas-tree shapes. Chris Pavone small environmental law teacher 'The Expats' would not exist without e-books. Chris Pavone would without exist I'd sometimes go to Paris by myself - it was an easy two-hour train ride - to get a break from the everyday grind, to walk around a big city, ride a subway, feel the energy of a world capital. Chris Pavone walk ride city myself When I was in my mid-twenties, I was a copy editor at Doubleday, and for a brief period, it was my job to help shepherd Pat Conroy's 'Beach Music' into the world. Chris Pavone job music beach world I spend a huge amount of time writing about the book instead of writing the actual text. Chris Pavone text writing time book A writer can spend a decade working obsessively on a novel, but in the commerce of publishing, many of the most important decisions about any book will be made based on very short pitches - from literary agent to editor to sales rep to bookstore buyer to a potential reader standing in the bookstore, asking, 'What's it about?' Chris Pavone short will important book After college, I was burdened with student loans to repay, no financial cushion, so I wasn't in a position to bet everything on a creative-writing career - neither the writing-workshop academia life nor the freelance-writer version, trying to scrape by on short stories and house-painting gigs. Chris Pavone short college trying life Writing is a solitary occupation; we don't really have any colleagues. Chris Pavone any colleagues occupation writing One of the epiphanies I had was that I got into publishing because I love literature. Chris Pavone got because literature love I had been very dismissive of popular fiction - in fact, I'd refused to read it. And then I started working on popular fiction, and I realised these books weren't the same as Hemingway, say, but they were good in a different way. Chris Pavone say good different way Eventually, I realised that I wanted to try to create something myself, and that's what writing novels is. Not because I wanted to put myself in front of the world, but because I wanted to create something that would go out into the world. Chris Pavone try myself writing world 'The Expats' is a thriller, but one that tends more toward general fiction than toward breathless pulp. Chris Pavone general than more fiction I live in Greenwich Village in New York City, but I rarely write at home, where there's too much else to do. Chris Pavone live city village home