When the four of us began this whole enterprise, we met in person to talk about our projections and anxieties about writing together. Over pasta and wine, we worried about the idea of reading books together, long-term: What if we all came up with the same ideas? How would we distinguish our voices as writers? What if we weren't original enough? It turned out that none of these concerns came to anything, though of course we all fell into certain patterns of reading and even raised the same questions or terms or ideas. We never thought the same things or repeated each other. It seems so obvious now: of course we wouldn’t, we are different people. And yet, that anxiety was so strongly felt. Why?

These are, of course, the very same fears that Lila and Lent express in their different ways—the fears of pollution and codependence that inevitably accompany intimacy of any kind. Considering Lila and Len, considering us, considering this venture and the novels it springs from, I wonder if there is a way to be confident in solidarity—in a personal way (and in a political one too, I think) but not subsume each other; to experience an intellectual and emotional togetherness that feels the giddiness of being overwhelmed with feeling but does not itself overwhelm. If there is a way to truly be with one another, and infiltrate one another, and communicate deeply, but not get lost in other minds. If there is a way to both be your friend and be yourself and not betray either. If there is a way to dissolve margins but not give in to the seductions of madness or self-obliteration. Perhaps that is the most defiant challenge of these novels to their characters and to their readers.