Vanessa Stauffer

In the opening scene of Starry Starry Night, four-year-old Anju struggles with Barlow, the household worker tasked with bathing her. “I scream, tug, and pull,” the child narrates. “The louder I scream, the sooner she gives up, and Ma comes in to take over.” Eventually Ma “holds out her arms,” allowing Anju to “fall into…

Midway through my master’s degree, I found myself sunk in a sofa, listening to one of those arguments you encounter mostly at grad school parties: that you did not need to read a book to have — well, read the book. A classmate had mounted this claim after it became apparent that his criticism of a seminal text came from its general shape rather than readerly…