I spent nine years in Oxford (B.A., D.Phil., JRF), then decided I could not face the enforced specialization of academia. Spent seven years working on various novels, trying to combine this with various jobs. In 1995 I decided this must stop. I had 100 novels in fragments, including a 300-page single-spaced MS with terrible structural problems. I quit my job: I would write till money ran out. Had terrible argument with my father, could not deal with this big difficult book. Thought: We don’t pick our parents. If we could choose, I would have picked someone better than this. Thought: OK. I can’t work on this book. I will write a novel with a simple structure that can be FINISHED. I will set aside a month and write with NO INTERRUPTIONS. (Story: Son of single mother, obsessed with Seven Samurai, goes in search of better father than the one fate provided.)

—Helen DeWitt

Ok, now I don’t feel so bad for having eight.