What you want to do is create a work that can be read non-referentially. There is nothing esoteric or mysterious about this. It simply means that you want the work to be self-contained. A reader can do with a work what he or she wants. You can't force interpretations and you can't prevent them.

In Omensetter's Luck, I wanted to take on the nature-culture cliché because I knew that it was one of the basic themes of American literature, and I wanted to have my go at it. I set Omensetter back in that particular period precisely because I didn't want my writing to be influenced by reality…. Fiction, god damn it, is fiction. When will that simple truth be acknowledged.

The same thing is true of most of the stories. The only one of which it isn't quite true is "In the Heart of the Heart of...