Jeffrey Eugenides stopped by the FSG offices a couple weeks ago, in advance of his book tour for The Marriage Plot. We used the opportunity to let his Facebook fans ask a few questions, some of which are featured in the video below. Q. In the introduction for My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead you speak of the concept of a “love story” and provide a selection of short stories in that vein. Which novels do you believe also fit the mold of a “love story,” and did they influence your writing of The Marriage Plot?

As a special offer to Work in Progress subscribers, our friends at BOMB Magazine are offering their complete online interview with controversial French writer Tristan Garcia. This will be available only for a short time. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do so here; you'll receive a link to the interview in your inbox shortly thereafter. Garcia's novel, Hate: A Romance, won the prestigious Prix de Flore. He has previously written a book of philosophy. -Ryan Chapman "To me, a novel is specifically defined as an experience—concerning morality and knowledge—that takes the shape of a story. Like any experience, it runs the risk of having imperfect results, but it must always allow us to know a little more than what we already knew, than what we have personally experimented with in our own life. It is truly a moral adventure. The experience must particularly—and this is the specific power of the novel—give us the means to escape the limits of our morality (individual, familial, national, of class, or species) to adopt that of an Other (the character) who can truly begin to exist there where our own actions end." -Tristan Garcia