“Something’s got to give,” said James Salter to me. Every day something does give. But over the years, I’m finding a way to keep writing. The Company We Keep is my bi-monthly column on the reading and writing life at the Washington Independent Review of Books.
It began with an essay on Salter, and now it is in its third year.
I’m ambivalent about the personal essay; how much to say; how much to withhold? I think a lot about the privacy of the subject, my own privacy. It is a genre made for discomfiture, but it a truth-telling that in spite of making me uncomfortable, is one I’m glad exists. My favorite ones are the New York Times Modern Love essays and podcast. I talk more about the Artist’s Responsibility HERE.
Leeya Mehta
When the dog sees how happy she is he licks my legs. I do not like my legs licked so profusely but I let him do it.