'Casebook' is my attempt at a love story. I had a vision of a difficult love.

In every person’s face, there is one place that seems to express them most accurately. With my grandmother, you always looked at her mouth.

So many things that seemed crucial and excruciatingly hard ended and then didn’t matter anymore, forever after.

Prologue: There are three wants which can never be satisfied: that of the rich wanting more, that of the sick, wanting something different, and that of the traveler, who says, “anywhere but here.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? Does it improve upon the silence?

I unplug the phone and close the door and just stick with it. I don’t ever go out for lunch and I don’t take vacations. I like to be awake when no one else is: either just before dawn in the morning or late, late at night. Silence helps.

The first person besides my mother who believed in me was a man whose last name I never knew. He was my boss, the manager of Swenson’s Ice Cream shop.

And even if you hate her, can’t stand her, even if she’s ruining your life, there’s something about her, some romance, some power. She’s absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair.

We come into the world whole, all of us, but we don’t know that, don’t know that life will be taking large chunks out of us, forever.

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.