“So let me read the novel.” “No.” “Because it has no pulse?” “Yes.” “I still don’t understand what that means.” “It was something my father said to me once after he read a piece I’d written. I’ve never forgotten it. He said all truly good writing—fiction or nonfiction—has a heartbeat, a life force that comes from the writer, like an invisible cord connecting them to the reader. Without it, the work is dead on arrival.”
