An interview with Jerald Walker, writer of "The Heart"

The essay feasts on doubt, self-doubt, contradiction and paradox. Nowhere is this more striking than in essays written in opposition to a seemingly unchallengeable good. Examples of the tradition include Joyce Carol Oates’ “Against Nature,” Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation,” Witold Gombrowicz’s “AgainstPoets,” Laura Kipnis’ “Against Love” and (dare I include) my own “Against Joie de Vivre.”

Two troubled souls who—despite their love—simply would not, and maybe could not, be soothed

People who read my memoir often want to know whether I’m healed. This question always terrifies me. I didn’t know I needed to be healed, but leaving that aside for the moment, it’s still a question that stymies me: “After writing X, did you feel healed?”It’s

I notice the words right away. They float against the beige brick wall. I’m struck by the specificity of the phrase and the way it rolls off my tongue: “Fatigue Detection Capability.

  There’s a lot of handwringing, recently, about how tough the publishing industry has become, how much change there is—which, of course, there is, though I suspect we’re romanticizing “the good old days.” As far as writers and editors are concerned, there’s as much mystery and frustration as ever. But there is one thing I miss: the author as a personality.

"As a publisher, there’s one moment I dread in the list-planning meetings where editors present their upcoming titles to colleagues. It’s when someone says, 'We need to talk about the sub.'"

On the outskirts of my Tanti Marie’s village, where the village met the wild forests, there was a proper little cemetery, with marble cross tombstones alongside wooden ones, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence.

The Live Oak Meeting House, where Friends gather each Sunday to sit in silence until the spirit moves them, wasn’t entirely quiet, at first. The child in the pew in front of me whispered as she nuzzled against her grandmother’s neck.

An imaginary—but also all-too-real—conversation