When I was a 7-year-old girl, in my bedroom, on my karaoke machine, I would sing 'On My Own' or do a one-woman version of 'Les Miserables.'
Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives.
Five years ago, people were crying and feeling the Japanese were about to take over the Earth. I don't hear that kind of talk anymore.