Youth Is The Only Sexy Tragedy. It's

What I Wanted To Do Seemed Simple. I Wanted Something Alive And Shocking Enough That It Could Be A Morning In Somebody's Life. The Most Ordinary Morning. Imagine, Trying To Do That.

Like My Hero Virginia Woolf, I Do Lack Confidence. I Always Find That The Novel I'm Finishing, Even If It's Turned Out Fairly Well, Is Not The Novel I Had In My Mind. I Think A Lot Of Writers Must Negotiate This, And If They Don't Admit It, They're Not Being Honest.

Jenny Offill's Dept. Of Speculation Resembles No Book I've Read Before. If I Tell You That It's Funny, And Moving, And True; That It's As Compact And Mysterious As A Neutron; That It Tells A Profound Story Of Love And Parenthood While Invoking (among Others) Keats, Kafka, Einstein, Russian Cosmonauts, And Advice For The Housewife Of 1896, Will You Please Simply Believe Me, And Read It?

What She Wants To Say Has To Do Not Only With Joy But With The Penetrating, Constant Fear That Is Joy's Other Half.

Insomniacs Know Better Than Anyone How It Would Be To Haunt A House.