“I write fiction mostly to try to make sense of my own petty and profound misery, and I fail every time, but every time, I come away with a peculiar sort of contentment, as if it was just the trying that mattered. And maybe that’s the best answer to the patently ridiculous problem of trying to reconcile all the very visible evil and suffering in the world with the existence of a God who is not actually out to get us: we suffer and we don’t give up.”

—Chris Adrian, medical doctor and author