It's hard not to look at Brian Williams and think there but for the grace of God go all of us. Haven't researchers documented how we remember ever newer versions of earlier events? The fictionalizing of our experience is surely central not only to the neurobiology of memory but also to creative work. When people ask me, "Is your novel autobiographical?" I say there is one incident in The Train to Orvieto that did in fact happen to me. It would be more accurate to say that the whole work is autobiographical in the sense that it is a record of my imaginary journey, one that parallels, but is not, real life. I hope that I've written about these experiences as vividly as they occurred to me.