I wanted only a familiar voice, someone who knew me. Not some earlier, larval version of myself. . .

That renunciation of human closeness, of our deepest instincts: is it, in the end, simply too much to ask? Good men-sound, healthy men-can't make the sacrifice, or don't want to has Holy Mother settled for the unsound and unhealthy? Has the Church, ever pragmatic, made do with what is left?

The story of my family. . .changes with the teller.

Writing fiction, like reading fiction, is a practice in empathy.