Hampton Sides

The thing about Memphis is that it's pleasingly off-kilter. It's a great big whack job of a city. The anti-Atlanta. You go there, and you can't believe the things people will say, the way they think, the wobbling orbits of their lives. There's an essential otherness.

I don't concentrate on any one period of history; I like to locate my stories in wildly different eras and places. I seem to be drawn to large, sprawling, uncomfortable swaths of American history, finding embedded within them a tight narrative that involves strife, heroism, and survival under difficult circumstances.

From a good lie in the middle of a fairway bunker, I'll make the same swing as I do from an average fairway lie. I'll dig my feet in slightly and keep my lower body stable so I won't slip, but I don't change my club selection or setup. It's only when the ball is sitting down in the sand that I'll make some modifications.