John Wray is the author of Godsend (FSG, 2018), The Lost Time Accidents (FSG, 2016), Lowboy (FSG, 2009), Canaan’s Tongue (Knopf, 2005), and The Right Hand of Sleep (Knopf, 2001).
John Wray sees novels as falling into one of two categories—arrowheads or fruitcakes—whose modus operandi are distinct. “There’s the kind of novel that’s formed on the principle of exclusion, in which your goal is something very flinty and...