Fictional characters are often said to be based on real people. However, in my experience of writing fiction, a character’s initial resemblance to some real person soon blurs. I think of a secondary character, Ray, in my novel Caroline. He’s a
Paying Full Fare
Here’s a dilemma few people face and perhaps even fewer recognize as a dilemma. When my parents lived in Connecticut, I used to take the New Haven train from New York’s Grand Central Terminal to Stamford, where they’d pick me up and
Temperament and Literary Critics
I recently spoke glowingly to a friend about Amor Towles’ story collection, Table for Two (2024). She acknowledged, without enthusiasm, having read his A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), a novel about a charming man leading a charmed life in a hotel
Speech Therapy
In this short recollection, I am attending a school in London at the age of eight or nine. I’d had a cleft palate surgically repaired when I was too young to remember, and now I was required to undergo speech therapy. Looking back, I marvel at the
Belonging: A Story
One morning years ago, a number of decades I could count on the fingers of one hand, I was waiting on the platform of my local subway station. A train arrived and opened its doors right in front of a woman with long, dark brown hair. A yard or two to
A Perfect Love
In September, here in Brooklyn, there will be a summer-warm afternoon, heavy with moisture, when an autumn front approaches. Above me is that sky that made May and June beautiful, fragrant with flower scents and optimism, but that by now has become