Dear reader, I truly want to earn a long-term relationship with you as one of your favorite authors. So I’m going to tell you what I think you will find most interesting and most relevant to American Underground. First of all, a lot of my life has been mixed up. I was literally born a novelist, and my need to write novels, one after another, has been the over-riding force driving my behavior. You would expect that to be a good thing, and you would expect to have already read one of my books. But I was also literally born with a severe case of depression. So I was not able to incorporate my natural talent in a constructive or accepting way — until now. Being raised in a hyper-conservative Roman Catholic household had something to do with that, too, but mostly it all happened inside my head. Several characters in American Underground also have to learn how to find themselves and accept themselves for who they truly are. And they have to accept the hardships and challenges that go along with a path of real discovery. I’m telling you this to show you that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to toughing it out through personal growth. This mixed up quality of my artistic life affected everything else, too. I’ve had many different jobs. I taught elementary school, I started a software company, I ran a vending machine business, I programmed websites, and I worked as a stock broker — writing novels the whole time, of course. One of the main reasons I’ve had so many different occupations is that I spent far more time talking to people about their religious beliefs, their political opinions, and their life experiences that I did closing business. I have vivid memories of being at a gigantic software trade show, for example, where rather than sell software I engaged in an intense conversation with someone about James Joyce, or goddess-oriented cultures in pre-historic Europe, or the cultural impact of MTV.   The main lesson from this is that you need to align yourself with your true nature first, and then choose your profession. That way there won’t be any conflict between living your life and your work. Your work will just be part of the way you live your life.   The last thing I’d like to let you know is that I have three wonderful children, two biological and one adopted. Raising children taught me more than anything else, and also made me care intensely about the future of our civilization. The political, economic and environmental themes in the novel are in their honor. So is the story of Lily and Finn, two teenagers who fall in love over the course of American Underground.   Thank you for your interest. I hope to entertain and inspire you with novels for many years to come!