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

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

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

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?