Personal histories and memoirs have always offered enticing glimpses into writers’ private lives and individual struggles. Part of their appeal lies in the intimate and specific nature of these narratives. This week, we’re bringing you a selection of personal accounts and reflections that offer intriguing perspectives on the experiences that have transformed the worlds of writers. In “Elegy for Iris,” John Bayley writes about his wife, the novelist Iris Murdoch, and her struggles with Alzheimer’s disease. (“Our mode of communication seems like underwater sonar, each of us bouncing pulsations off the other and listening for an echo,” he writes.) In “Thanksgiving in Mongolia,” Ariel Levy describes the heartbreak of having a miscarriage while reporting halfway around the world. Nora Ephron recounts how the promise of a much anticipated family inheritance fizzled out and subsequently prompted her to finish the screenplay for “When Harry Met Sally . . . ” In “On Impact,” the novelist Stephen King chronicles his struggle to return to writing after he was struck and seriously injured by a minivan, in 1999. (“For me, there have been times when the act of writing has been an act of faith, a spit in the eye of despair.”) Colson Whitehead recalls his childhood passion for B-movies and science fiction, and how that influenced his own writing years later. In “Busted in New York,” the playwright and novelist Darryl Pinckney reflects on his arrest on a minor drug charge on the Lower East Side. (He writes, “Jail was going to get me over my fear of saying the obvious, because there was no way to ignore all morning the fact that everyone in the cell was either black or Hispanic.”) In “The Fourth State of Matter,” Jo Ann Beard examines the week of a tragic mass shooting at her workplace, the University of Iowa. (“In a few hours the world will resume itself, but for now we’re in a pocket of silence. We’re in the plasmapause, a place of equilibrium, where the forces of the earth meet the forces of the sun.”) Salman Rushdie writes about the inspiration for his novel “The Satanic Verses” and examines how a fatwa utterly transformed his life. In “Brilliant Light,” Oliver Sacks explores his childhood fascination with chemistry and science. Finally, in “Losing Religion and Finding Ecstasy in Houston,” Jia Tolentino delves into her experiences with faith and recreational drugs while growing up in Texas. We hope that you enjoy these unforgettable glimpses into private lives.
“Elegy for Iris”
Scenes from an indomitable marriage.
“Thanksgiving in Mongolia”
Adventure and heartbreak at the edge of the earth.
“Busted in New York”
A nighttime walk leads to trouble.
“My Life as an Heiress”
The will that wouldn’t.
“On Impact”
After an accident, the author had to learn to write again.
“A Psychotronic Childhood”
Learning from B-movies.
“The Fourth State of Matter”
A week in the author’s life when it became impossible to control the course of events.
“The Disappeared”
How the fatwa changed a writer’s life.
“Brilliant Light”
A chemical boyhood.
“Losing Religion and Finding Ecstasy in Houston”
Christianity formed my deepest instincts, and I have been walking away from it for half my life.
