I first started reading Grace Paley in the weeks after my second novel was published, as I sought refuge from refreshing Goodreads, from waiting for the Booker Prize Committee to phone. Reading the five-page piece “Love,” and rereading it many times after, tears sprung into to my eyes—this was a perfect portrait of tenderness, of something ineffable and true and strange and small and enormous.Article continues after advertisement
My first reading of the story ended with me remembering, in a jolt, why I write. There is some ego in the mix, of course, but ultimately, the egoic drive alone is not enough to propel me forward through years and years of working on a novel, which I am so proud of, and which was not shortlisted for the Booker Prize, nor did it cause Goodreads to spontaneously combust into sprinkles of fairy dust. I write, as Paley wrote, because I am in love with people, because I am fascinated by language, because I want this world to be a little more gentle and a little more just; I write to chisel toward the mystery, I write to play, I write to grieve, I write to be in conversation with ancestors.
I write, as Paley wrote, because I am in love with people, because I am fascinated by language, because I want this world to be a little more gentle and a little more just.
