SOURCE: Woodruff, Jay and Tobias Wolff. “Tobias Wolff: Interview.” In A Piece of Work: Five Writers Discuss Their Revisions, edited by Jay Woodruff, pp. 22-40. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993.

In the following interview, originally published in Contemporary Literature, spring 1990, Wolff discusses his approach to the writing and revision of the title story “In the Garden of the North American Martyrs.”

[Woodruff]: How did [“In the Garden of the North American Martyrs”] get started? What was its genesis?

[Wolff]: Well, there are a few things that I can trace it to. One is a job interview I had several years ago which was not, it turned out, a serious interview. That is, I had been brought across the country in order to fulfill a requirement of the college that so many people be interviewed for each position. And when I found this out it really burned me...