I am telling Lauren in Texas (and Anna in Ohio and Emily in California and Colleen in Chicago) to take a deep breath. (I’m not telling them the feeling of being unprepared, under-read, behind never really goes away.) I’m telling them what Jerry Stern told me when I similarly freaked: develop a subject. To enter graduate school with a passion or two, your own little corner where you maybe don’t exactly reign, but you know your way around, a bit, gives you a place to be. A thing you can be known for.
Lauren will read all of Carson McCullers, and everything she can find about Carson McCullers. Every letter, every blog, every journal article. Every biography. Brochures from the house tour. If it’s Carson, Lauren (who has wisely named her dog Carson) reads it. Meanwhile, over in Ohio, dear Ann’s on her 18th-century-unmarried-American women kick—good, good—and Emily’s making her way to California, torn between short story cycles, Hemingway, and the graphic novel. Good! Good. That’s all you have to do. Don’t even try to keep up with the new Eggers, Franzen, Chabon, Munro. Don’t worry: Moby didn’t happen then and it’s not going to happen now. Forget about the vow to do Russians in winter. Keep up with your courses. And fall in love: with your subject. One author. Part of a period. Japanese pillow books. Mine your tiny patch of land to its deepest depths. And you’ll be fine!
When you get to graduate school, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed. You constantly feel dumb. You didn’t read enough in undergrad, and the books you read were the wrong books! Don’t worry. Go narrow. Stay put. Continue reading “Letter to Lauren (Who is Freaking Out, Who is Feeling Underprepared, Underread, Under Everything), On the Occasion of Her Entering Graduate School”