He Pulled Away, But His Eyes Held

Very Few Women Have Become Famous For Being Who They Actually Are, Nuanced And Imperfect. When Honesty Happens, It's Usually Couched In Self-ridicule Or Self-help. Dunham Doesn't Apologize Like That-she Simply Tells Her Story As If It Might Be Interesting. The Result Is Shocking And Radical Because It Is Utterly Familiar. Not That Kind Of Girl Is Hilarious, Artful, And Staggeringly Intimate; I Read It Shivering With Recognition.

I Think Titles Are Tricky Because They're Like A Really Short Ad For The Book. And Like An Ad, They Should Open The Door In A Way That Might Be More Accessible Than The Book Itself. So I Always Like Titles To Be Familiar. I'm Not Trying To Break Ground With The Title Itself. The Title Should Feel Like Something Already Celebrated.

I Laughed And Said, Life Is Easy. What I Meant Was, Life Is Easy With You Here, And When You Leave, It Will Be Hard Again.

I Made Orange Juice From Concentrate And Showed Her The Trick Of Squeezing The Juice Of One Real Orange Into It. It Removes The Taste Of Being Frozen. She Marveled At This, And I Laughed And Said, Life Is Easy. What I Meant Was, Life Is Easy With You Here, And When You Leave, It Will Be Hard Again.

After I Had My Son I Looked Everywhere For A Book That Might Serve As Some Kind Of Mirror. I Bought So Many Silly Books. Now I See What The Problem Was: I Wanted A Book About Time-about Mortality. I Can't Think Of A Writer Who Is At Once So Experimentally Daring And So Rigorously Uncompromising As Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness Is An Incredibly Elegant, Wise Book, And I Loved It.