Blog Archive

This article first appeared online in the Atlantic on January 16, 2018 and quickly became one of the most read articles in the magazine for a week, surpassing even an argument for why Donald Trump should be impeached. Eventually it would gather over a million online views. Since it hides now behind a paywall on the Atlantic's website, I'm putting it up here.

In the youth group were the two twins, petite, full-lipped, with short frosted hair, who came from trouble and were probably headed toward bigger trouble if Jesus didn't stop them short first, one of whom wrote me lingering, perfumed letters all summer, but she wasn't the one I liked.

George Blaustein, an editor of the European Review of Books and a professor of American Studies in Amsterdam, wrote an essay in The Dial about teaching American Studies in Europe. It’s a very good piece about the widening and now narrowing of “American Studies” and America as a place (and a story) that ends with this line:

Ten rules for rules for writers … Note: This essay was inspired some time ago by an online discussion about jargon and seniority, as well as by discussions about academic writing in which I found myself qualifying my recommendations by acknowledging that power and authority deformed them.

I haven’t mentioned this before, but there’s a large WWII American cemetery about 6 kilometers from where we live, the only one in the Netherlands. Because it’s 80 years since liberation, the annual concert at the cemetery was especially big, and my 8 year old son and I went. It was a pleasant evening of music, stories, and appropriate honoring of the dead.

Bye Bye I Love You has organized my life for the last five years. I’ve been explaining that it was the predicate for my life. It structured other decisions. After my family, it was my priority. If something didn’t serve the book, it was jettisoned. So maybe I should explain what I mean by “the predicate.” Which is also a pleasure to say.