In the second half of my conversation with Karen Joy Fowler, we shift seamlessly (sort of) from Star Wars to ponder: 

• self, other, difference and childhood,

• whether an interesting childhood a good thing,

• parentting as experiment,

• bad dads,

• responses to the novel, including a letter from a woman whose family participated in the actual experiments,

• communication in the animal world,

• vivisection,

• the Brown Dog Riots in Battersea,

• non-violence and American activism,

• Fowler's ideas about writing,

• inspiration and uncontrollable characters,

• reviews, bleakness and comedy,

• literature empathy and September 11th, 

• risk, happiness, success and how to be a hit novelist (not),

• the challenge of following We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,

• and, how Obamacare can help American novelists.