So many well-meaning people in my own family confront me, they instruct me, they denounce me, Richard said, they tell me You only have one mother. They say it like it’s a bad thing. One is enough. These flagrant children, boil them like corn, boil them in a sack. It is other people who tell us who we are, other people who tell you what you can be and whether or not you have become it yet, all these other people. Other people are reality, Richard said, other people who want to drink your blood, this is well-known.

I have trouble talking about books because to me it feels like narcissistic display. I’m reading this great book because I’m so great. Now, that’s not what people really mean when they talk about books, but it makes it difficult for me. “What is a book you wished you had read earlier?” A book I had read earlier in order to do what?