"?what I wanted to do was start out inside the mind of a factory girl and describe the world: What it was like when you met a woman from another factory, what it was like when your friend helped you because you lost your job, what it felt like on payday when everyone crowded into the post office to send money home? I felt like I had gotten to know enough of these young women well enough that I felt confident to write the beginning of the book in this way, thrusting you into this world."

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"When words no longer tell the truth, when words turn into lies, language dies, and we with the language. It is the first and foremost task of every poet, of every novelist, to write meaningful words, to write truthful words. You don't have to be religious, or a philosopher, or a great expert on Plato to realize that a language cannot be without truth."

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