SOURCE: Gordon, Mary, and Patti Doten. “The Voices Inside Mary Gordon: In In Rest of Life, Her Muses Move Her to Write About the Sexes.” Boston Globe (4 October 1993): 30.

In the following interview, Gordon comments on the theme of gender relations in The Rest of Life.

Authors have always talked about the source of their creative fire—dreams and nightmares, a traumatic childhood, voices echoing from behind the arras. But Mary Gordon, author of the critically acclaimed Final Payments and The Company of Women, makes the source of her considerable vision sound so simple, so homey.

“I get a feeling that someone's living in the house,” said Gordon, who was in Boston to publicize her latest book, The Rest of Life. “I've no idea how they moved in. I begin to hear their voices. I listen closely so I can find the language that will make them visible and...