[N]obody can offer [cult members] what they want, only cult people can do that. They don't have a checking system, to decide what is right and what is wrong. We haven't given them those judging systems. I suppose that we authors have a responsibility for that. If I give you the right story, that story will give you a judging system, to tell what is wrong and what is right.
Few things are more delightful and distracting than interviews with authors. Today, it's this old Salon interview with
Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami that's thrown itself in the path between me and the work I should be doing. Murakami talks about interviews he did with victims of the nerve-gas attack in Japan's subway system, committed by the Aum cult. He wrote a book based on the interviews, which Amazon says will be published in April. (By the way, Don DeLillo's new book is due in February.)