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A week of sleepless nights, best beloved. I’ve been struggling with Grand Central. The personal nature of the story, a possibly fictionalized version of real events in the author’s life, “put me through the changes,” as an old friend used to say, meaning that it challenged some core beliefs about reading and about writing. When I read a story, I generally am not terribly interested in the author’s personal life or what kind of person they are or were. I’d rather approach stor

A new book this week, Elizabeth Smart’s 1945 novella, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, weighing in at one-hundred and twelve pages in the 1992 Flamingo edition. I became aware of Grand Central via my son, who read it in a literature class at McGill University and recommended it to me. Elizabeth Smart was a Canadian writer whose life took a dramatic turn when she picked up a book of poetry in a London bookshop written by George Barker. She loved it, and eventually