Take Me With You. I

She Is, Above All Else, Tired; She Wants More Than Anything To Return To Her Bed And Her Book. The World, This World, Feels Suddenly Stunned And Stunted, Far From Everything.

At The Risk, Then, Of Being Shunned By Some Of My Gloomier Peers, I Venture To Tell You That Writers Work Like Demons, Suffer Greatly, And Are Also Happy, In Unmistakable Ways, Some Of The Time. If We Had No Knowledge Of Happiness, Our Novels Wouldn't Sufficiently Resemble Real Life. Some Of Us Are Even Made A Little Bit Happy, On Occasion, By The Writing Process Itself. I Mean, Really, If There Wasn't Some Sort Of Enjoyment To Be Derived, Would Any Of Us Keep Doing It?

As Writers We Must, From Our Very Opening Sentence, Speak With Authority To Our Readers.

That Summer When She Was Eighteen, It Seemed Anything Could Happen, Anything At All.

You Have Started The Book With This Bubble Over Your Head That Contains A Cathedral Full Of Fire - That Contains A Novel So Vast And Great And Penetrating And Bright And Dark That It Will Put All Other Novels Ever Written To Shame. And Then, As You Get Towards The End, You Begin To Realise, No, It's Just This Book.