Many of us form profound attachments when we read. Sometimes we attach ourselves to characters, imagining them as our friends or lovers or most profound enemies; sometimes a book’s author draws us, perhaps because of a persona he or she projects, perhaps—especially if we are writers or would-be writers ourselves—because we admire and envy.

All my crises are scrawled in the margins of the novels I’ve read over and over again, sometimes to feel safe, sometimes to sink willfully into further despair.