Though she didn’t know it at the time, Sharon’s first book lays out the main themes she’ll explore in later books: family, historical characters, nature, work, the daily life, and story vignettes. They are different life arrangements the writer can choose once removed from “her distress:” “…for her distress had allowed no arrangement.”  (Jane Austen, Mansfield Park) 

Listen and read: “In Conversation with Gertrude Stein“