We seek leadership from each other, and the cautionary Girl at War (Sara Novic)

We are, in this country, in a state of profound bewilderment—or the vast majority of us are. Ours has become a land of unloosed epithet throwers, flame tossers, defacers, chanters, emboldened murderers...and the millions and millions of the rest of us who are saying no, this is not who we are, this is not what we want, this is not what our fathers and brothers and sisters and mothers have fought for, this is not the United States, this is not leadership, this is not even remotely "fine."

Without leadership from the top, we seek leadership from each other.

I teach in the spring at the University of Pennsylvania. I take solace, on those Tuesdays, from the students who sit with me—the students who go deep, take risks, find the words, remind me of the future, the students who, in times of great moral peril, remain willing to imagine and empathize and tell the truth.

But I'll have to wait until January to meet them, and between now and then I find myself spinning, lost, then regaining traction through the books that I am reading. Camille T. Dungy's Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History has been alerting, and helpful. Edwidge Danticat's The Art of Death. CeCe Bell's El Deafo. Nina Riggs's The Bright Hour. And, read over a long period of time so that it would not come too soon to its end, Sara Novic's Girl at War.

Novic's much-lauded novel begins with the story of a ten-year-old girl living a tomboy's life in Croatia's capital. Things aren't perfect there, hardly—her baby sister is sick, money is tight, her father and mother are sometimes at odds. But there are still simple pleasures like bike rides with a best friend and the stories her father tells at night. All of which swiftly changes as war settles into this civilized place. Shattered buildings. Underground shelters. Plumes of war smoke watched from a balcony.

On the left, the twin peaks of Zagreb Katedrala stretched taller than all the surrounding buildings. I couldn't remember a time when the cathedral wasn't at least partly swathed in scaffolding and tarps, but that only added to its sense of majesty, its wounds a physical manifestation of the sorrows and confessions of the city. In nights before the war, two spotlights lit the stone towers in dual rushes of warm gold. Now, with the lights quelled in anticipation of a blackout, it was difficult to pinpoint the boundary between the spires and the night sky.

And things are about to get worse, as Ana's baby sister is sent away for medical help, a car blockade derails Ana's life, and Ana finds herself in a safe house learning the mechanics of warfare. Later Ana will be secretly ushered to the United States. She'll struggle to live with her buried past. She'll finally return to the country that was broken by war.

While not an autobiographical novel, Girl at War is an utterly authentic one—a story Novic began writing as an 18 year-old in a college classroom. She pursued the facts in long months spent in Croatia. She kept writing until she found its arc.

The result is vivid, heartbreaking, and not just historical. It is alive with the cautions of what happens when communities allow minor and major differences (a desire for new roads, a hatred for cultural differences) to tear themselves apart. It seemed to me, as I finished reading yesterday, to be an exemplary cautionary tale.

If we let ourselves devolve into the fractions the white supremacists hope we will, we will become a country even more at war with itself. We must, then, lead from within. Lead each other.

I'm teaching literary middle grade and young adult literature next spring at Penn—the writing of books for and about the young that sear into our minds and hearts by virtue of their organic concerns and crafted structures. Sara Novic, whose adult Girl at War won an Alex Award (books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18) will be coming to Penn on March 13, 2018, as part of my curriculum.

(As always, I have Julia Bloch and Jessica Lowenthal to thank for making my guest-list dreams come true.)

I know that seems like a long way off. I know we can't imagine who we will be, as a nation, at that time.  No matter what, mark your calendars. Read her book in the meantime.

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we don't foresee the gifts we're given: an unexpected honor for THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU

On Saturday afternoon the phone rang. It was my father on the line. He'd just collected his mail, opened a package from the University of Pennsylvania, and discovered my most recent novel, This Is the Story of You, featured in "a selection of books by University of Pennsylvania faculty and alumni authors curated just for you."

Adam Grant, Lisa Scottoline, Angela Duckworth, Jordan Sonnenblick, Jennifer Yu, Allison Winn Scotch, Frances Jensen, Jody Foster, Joshua Bennett, and, somehow, me.

My childhood friend, Susan Renz, also received a copy. It is her photograph above.

This is the thing about this writing life: we may wish for many things, but we rarely see the gifts coming.

 In 1998, I was far away, in London, when I discovered several notes stuffed under the hotel room door, notes imploring me to call my editor and my agent right away. The news? My first book had been nominated for a National Book Award. What? I said, many times, after I connected with dear Amy Rennert, after I spoke with the courageous editor who had said yes to my book, Alane Mason. Can you help me understand?

I was doing the bills when I learned I won a Pew Fellowships grant.

I was talking to my mother when I learned I won a poetry prize.

I was sitting in the New York Times auditorium when Meredith Vieira called me to the stage to receive an award for Handling the Truth. My shoes were too tall. I could barely get there.

And, this past Saturday, I was sitting very still, reading Camille Dungy's powerful new collection of essays, Guidebook to Relative Strangers, when my father called and began to explain the package he'd received.

What? I said, many times.

There are so many things I have hoped for in this writing life, and most of those things have proven elusive. Just last month a near promise on a new book turned to a fizzle. Just yesterday, something I had been hoping for slipped through my pale fingers. And then there are these unforeseen, unimagined, even, moments when someone (you don't know who, and you'd like to thank them) says, in one way or the other, you have been seen.

To that special whomever within The Penn Fund who thought to include my work in this remarkably diverse and interesting list of titles: You have surprised me. You have heartened me. Thank you.

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