“People write about family in fictional form,” she said. “Fiction writers use details from life.” We were at Caffe Verona, where we’d gone to talk about it. When she’d learned I was upset after reading the galleys, she flew to Palo Alto the next day from where she lived in Los Angeles to talk with me. “It’s just what writers do. I didn’t mean to upset you. Not at all.” Reading her book, I felt there would be nothing left for me to write about. I felt emptied out. Jane didn’t like sushi because it felt like a tongue on her tongue. The details she described made me disconsolate, as if, having
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