This is a book full of loyalty and friendship--and of mourning, as AIDS claims one after another of Grumbach's closest writing and publishing friends. It is, perhaps preeminently, a book concerned with the related arts of writing and reading. Grumbach shares with us the difficulties of composition, the peculiarities and perversities of a modern literary career, her mordant observations on publishing in a third-rate age, and her delight in still coming upon books that strive for and achieve excellence.