Nonfiction and the Review

Michael Piafsky set down his submission bundles long enough this past week to share a few thoughts on the experience of reading nonfiction submissions to the Review. “Even if we can’t ultimately use the submissions,” writes Piafsky in “On Reading Nonfiction,” “I am invariably able to pick out the kernel of truth and yearning that compelled the author to write the piece, the eulogies to lost loved ones and foreign cultures in distress, the granting of closure to childhoods both nightmarish and idyllic.”