George Pelecanos

I do miss the Chocolate City of my youth.

Many fathers and sons never get to reconcile their differences or come to an understanding that fills the gap between love and expectations.

The Turnaround' isn't even really a crime novel. But you need conflict to make a novel, any kind of novel, and I don't know any other way to do it than crime.

After college, I spent a decade working the kinds of jobs that I write about - bartender, shoe salesman, kitchen man - while voraciously reading novels.

My goal is to get better with each book, and I feel like I am.

Until a book starts forming in your head, you always wonder, 'Am I going to be able to do this again?'

Treme' begins after Hurricane Katrina, and it's a year-by-year account of how everyday people there put their lives back together. It's sort of a testament to, or an argument for why, a great American city like New Orleans needs to be saved and preserved.

I had met many wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when I was researching my 2009 novel 'The Turnaround,' and I continue to be very interested in how returning servicemen and women deal with their new lives back home and how they're treated by America.

When I was a kid in the '60s, I went shopping in downtown Silver Spring. Hecht's, JCPenney, the little retailers - they sponsored all my sports teams.

I'd get off the set of 'The Wire' at 3 A.M. or even 4 A.M. and drive home to Washington to see my kids sleep and give them a kiss. I'd get up at 7 A.M., while the kids were still in bed, and drive back to Baltimore.

It's relatively easy to adopt kids if you're not trying to get kids that look exactly like you.

Kids need a father around to make them whole. They need their mom.