I Don't Usually Read My Reviews. I've

Whenever I Hang Out With My Female Friends, I Feel Like Context Is Never Needed. They Can Just Say Two Words About Something, It's Like Hearing The First Two Notes Of A Song And You Can Always Identify The Song. They Can Just Say A Word And I Know Exactly What They're Talking About.

We Want To Believe We Couldn't Be Replaced, And That The People We Love Are Irreplaceable.

I've Always Said That You Were Too Smart To Have A Profession. Smart People Are Hopeless In The Face Of Anything Actual. They Are Terrible Cooks. They Cannot Dress Themselves. They Are Children Who Need Guidance And Protecting.

Like Semmering Academy, The Grove School Was A Gothic Pile Of Bricks Run By 1950s-era Chalk Drones, Which Maintained Its Cultural Viability By Perpetuating A Weirdly Seductive Anxiety Throughout Its Community. Mary Herself Was A Victim Of The Seduction; Despite The Trying And Repetitive Emotional Requirements Of Her Job, She Remained Eternally Fascinated By The Wicker-thin Girls And Their Wicker-thin Mothers, All Of Them Favoring Dark Wool Skirts And Macintoshes And Unreadably Far-away Expressions; If She Squinted, They Could Have Emerged Intact From Any Of The Last Seven Decades.

I Obviously Read And Adore Traditional Fiction. I Teach Traditional Fiction, I Also Teach All Kind Of Not-so-traditional Fiction. And Since I'm Such A Plot Buff, And I'm Really Such A Narrative Buff, I Can't Seem To Relinquish My - Not Just Reliance - But Excitement About Those Traditional Techniques.