When Russell Banks was asked about the narrative voice he used in his novel "Rule of the Bone", he said he imagined two young boys lying in their bunks, in the summertime, almost asleep. One is looking up at the ceiling and talking. Russell wanted the narrative voice to have a similarly open confessional tone, as if saying: "It's dark and I trust you, and you're lying next to me and we're near sleep, and I'm going to risk telling the truth."
- Michael Ondaatje