“What struck me most was the book’s horrific scenes tied to childbirth — the incredible pain, the tearing of tissue, and the torrents of blood.”

Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and the dissolution of a modern marriage.

“The universe has been listening to my conversations, threading everything together. It began last April, when I picked up ​Swann’s Way ​for the third time in ten years. Each time it surprised me that the resonant moment everyone seems to know about — the moment when the narrator eats a madeleine with tea, and the aroma, the feel of it in his mouth, the motion of dipping and then bringing it to the lips, sets loose a slough of tender and animate memory — happens quickly, on page 60. Each time I’ve thought maybe no one else has ever finished this book either.”