Essays often begin in heartache, something unsettled, but as I follow it, the ache cracks open into something that doesn’t erase the heaviness but makes it breathable. When I write abstractedly about my own heartbreaks, it feel raw, almost indulgent to share. But then come the replies. Sometimes strangers tell me my words had helped them love... See more

There’s a long, almost devotional cultural history of revering the tragic. We’ve long associated suffering with seriousness, and seriousness with truth. Thinkers in pain are taken more seriously than those who glow. Nietzsche with his migraines, his solitude, his universe of dread and will and collapse. Kafka, whispering from his tubercular... See more

So Beautiful World is basically raising a canonical question—“How can we read or write novels (or care about love affairs) in the face of human misery”—and addressing it in the traditional way: by representing interiority and love affairs compellingly enough to keep you turning the pages—ideally, persuading you that, when people are fighting for... See more

These days, I am neither distrustful nor suspicious of the world, even though my heart breaks for it, and I am not despairing, depressed or embittered. Indeed, I see heartbreak as the most proportional response to the state of the world – to say I love you is to say my heart breaks for you, and this sentiment resonates within all things, bringing a... See more