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architecture, and suburban sprawl. One of the things I like about Provincetown is that it hasn���t changed that much, it hasn���t been poisoned the way cities like Hyannis have been ruined. I���ve come around to feeling that what we do as writers is essential and important. Consciousness is enlarged gently and delicately, yet powerfully, and it takes great literature, like great music, painting, and dance, to make that happen. I���ve come to believe that the function of the novelist is more important now than ever, precisely because the serious novel is in danger of becoming extinct. CB: If we connect these remarks to your novel about Jesus we see that the source of His wisdom resides in the parabolic language that He uses even more skillfully than the Devil. NM: One of the reasons I don���t altogether enjoy talking about that book is that it is not altogether my book. Some of the best lines in the book come from the Gospels. When you write a book, you want to be able to take credit for it. The Gospel According to the Son -- only half-credit. The Executioner���s Song, which a lot of people think is my best book, I also can���t take whole credit for. I didn���t write that incredible plot. God or the forces of human history put that story together. CB: Shakespeare took almost all of his plots from secondhand sources, such as Holinshed���s Chronicles. He absorbed history and earlier versions of his plays as cultural documents, then fully reimagined them. NM: You either write your own story or you don���t. The story, in novel-writing, is a powerful element. There are very few great stories and I would like to think that I came up with a great story once or twice. But I don���t know I have, except when I have HYLAND 33