MG: Oh yes. One thing is, men don’t know how women talk when they’re together, just as we really don’t know how men talk among themselves. You have to rather intuit it from something the man will let drop. And you’ll think, ‘Oh, so they do gossip.’

JL: People often ask me a question I find ridiculous. They ask why the main character of my novel is male. They think it’s something radical I’ve done. And I want to say, ‘Well have you ever read any Mavis Gallant? Every other story is from the point of view of a man.’ Or, ‘Have you read Chekhov, where every other story is from the point of view of a woman?’

MG: Not to speak of Flaubert.

JL: People seem to have no context about the history of writing and what writers have done all along.