I grew up in a perfectly conventional suburb of Jacksonville, close to one of the dullest rivers in America—the St. Johns—which may have been interesting at the time of Henry Bartram, but now is more likely the home of the hard-boiled middle class: people whose careers are set, are not rich, but are by no means poor. My ambition as a student was to get out. This I failed to do, perhaps because I wrote my personal statement...

I first read Death of a Salesman in my high school senior English class. From what I remember, everyone hated it. Miller has a knack for creating dislikeable characters, but even Abigail Williams or Eddie Carbone don’t match Willy Loman. For me though, Death of a Salesman was more than an account of an infuriatingly hypocritical father. Not long before reading the play, I had confronted my own father about an affair, so I found some unfortunate parallels to...

I was a weird kid. I made lists to plan my day: what I would eat, which socks I would wear. It all went on paper. When I was five, my aunt gave me a diary. I spent an hour filling every line with my name and proudly showed her my practiced autographs. She told me I’d missed the point—I was supposed to write my thoughts. I told her the diary needed to mind its own business. The...