I have gone back and forth several times over the last few days on whether or not it would be worth addressing Adam Plunkett's New Yorker.com review of poet Patricia Lockwood's latest book here. I don't write much on topical issues to begin with, there have been plenty of more noteworthy stories about women's issues in the public eye over the last week or so, and it's not exactly hurting her career any. Also,…

The story of how my family acquired Old World recipes for Ashkenazi cuisine is a rape story – but it takes a bit of digging to figure that out. They don’t talk about it. The ones who are left alive to tell it, anyway, the old ones. And we, the young ones, learned long ago to stop asking. The pursing and hardening of lips that were wide open with laughter only moments before, the sudden…