" I think there have been a lot of writers who’ve been experimenting lately with really sprawling novels that will deal with a number of different characters and different points on the globe. I understand that as a method of getting at the global culture that we live in, and I understand writers who want to maybe juxtapose very different historical periods to make some larger points about how things have changed over time. I tend to like the sort of idea of the novel as a little village, and the novel as a microcosm, a smaller world standing in for a larger one. "

― Tom Perrotta , The Leftovers