IN MY TEENS I revered writers. I hung onto their words the way my classmates hung onto marijuana. I believed writers had the gift of clairvoyance, that they knew things about this world non-writers didn’t. I thought people wrote and read books to decipher the secrets of human nature, to find meaning in their lives.

I was definitely looking for meaning. Everywhere I carried my notebook printed with red roses. On school-bus rides I read and wrote in quotes: I don’t believe in God, it’s an infirmity, but not to believe in God is a belief – Margaret Duras.