The author of the novel Indelicacy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) as well as two earlier collections of short fiction returns with her first nonfiction book, an essayistic meditation on writers and their work and an argument for the “essential unity of writing and life.” What started as the author’s diary of reading and writing fiction expands to include topics such as female friendships, landscape painting, book titles, and the politics of excess explored through readings of Marguerite Duras, Elena Ferrante, Renee Gladman, Virginia Woolf, and others in a paean to personal authenticity and artistic freedom. “A Horse at Night is like light from a candle in the evening: intimate, pleasurable, full of wonder,” writes novelist Ayşegül Savaş. “It asks us to consider fiction as life and life as fiction. Amina Cain is our generous, gentle guide through an exquisite library.”
