Literary Figures: Novelists

Bumble-ardy is a deeply imaginative tale about an orphaned pig who longs for a birthday party. Sendak, who is 83, wrote and illustrated the book while caring for his longtime partner, who died of cancer in 2007. "I did Bumble-ardy to save myself," Sendak says. "I did not want to die with him."

What if the rapture actually occurred? That's the plot of Tom Perrotta's new novel Te Leftovers, which examines the aftermath of an unexplained rapture like even in which millions of people around the globe inexplicably disappear into thin air.

Donald Ray Pollock worked in a paper mill and meatpacking plant for 32 years before becoming a writer. His second book The Devil All the Time is set in his hometown of Knockemstiff, Ohio, where he says "nearly everyone was connected by blood through one godforsaken calamity or another."

Jim Shepard writes what he knows, but he also likes to write what he doesn't know. "I think literature is, in some ways, about the exercise of the empathetic imagination," Shepard says. "I'm always interested in stretching that capacity." You Think That's Bad is his latest collection of short stories.

Stewart O'Nan's moodily comic novel, Emily, Alone, follows an 80-year-old woman as she navigates the minutia of everyday life. O'Nan explains how he got inside Emily's head -- and why he wanted to write about the daily indignities of getting older.

David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, was recently published. But to truly enjoy his work, says critic John Powers, you must read his earlier pieces, which were filled with "a staggering eye for detail" from "a mind that was never predictable."

Writer Mira Bartok's memoir, The Memory Palace, is in part about the car accident that left her with traumatic brain injury and about her relationship with her schizophrenic mother. She explains how her brain injury helped her understand — and reconnect with — her mother.

Novelist Walter Mosley explains how watching his mother's experience with dementia helped him craft his latest novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, which asks: Would you repair your failing memory if it meant your life span would also be significantly shortened?

Roth, who has been writing novels for more than a half-century, explains how he comes up with his ideas — and why he continues to write every day. In his latest work, Nemesis, he imagines a fictional polio outbreak set in his hometown of Newark, N.J., during the 1940s.

Many of Spencer's novels feature a turning point -- a dreadful, unplanned act committed by one of the characters. In his latest book, Man in the Woods, a carpenter accidentally kills a man, which leads him to question himself and his relationship with God.