When I heard Good News’s account of her life, I mentally began to formulate questions that start with the words “Why don’t you . . . ,” followed by a description of what—in our view—one should do in this sort of situation. My lips were on the point of producing one of these impertinent “why don’t yous” when I bit my tongue. That’s just what the color magazines do—just for a moment I’d wanted to be like them: they tell us what we’ve failed to do, where we’ve messed up, what we’ve neglected; ultimately they set us on ourselves, filling us with self-contempt. So I didn’t say a word. Other
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