Cirrus@Austlit

'I try to interrogate my reader bias as often as I can; the questionable motives behind my rage or comfort when reading, how hard and how often I project my own life onto the protagonist, and sometimes even, to my own shame, onto the author. And I wonder how often I am so hungry to read something that does my feelings and my experience justice (knowing full well I’m the only one who can write that), that I start to be frustrated when a book fails to do so. I suppose I’m still working on my book, and a great way to procrastinate is to think about how other people are writing their own books, and all the things they should have done differently. It’s been a safe and reliable distraction. I’m not above it.' (Introduction)

'What could be more humiliating than to write and be read, to be thought about and perceived by strangers? And then the worst: to be dissected, publicly and openly, for all the things we dedicated ourselves as teenagers to hiding? Time and time again, it strikes me that the worst thing that can ever happen to an author is for people to read their book. That’s when they start to think about it, write about it, ask about it, talk about it, and eventually give it back to the author, chewed up, wet and slobbery like a tennis ball out of a dog’s mouth.'  (Introduction)