Swallowing the Sea: On Writing & Ambition, Boredom, Purity & Secrecy

This is an excellent book about writing and-more unusually-a book that honors ambition, that idiosyncratic drive that compels writers and other artists to action and then keeps them going, despite every kind of obstacle. In a linked series of essays, Lee Upton reclaims ambition as an essential value, describing its roles (as subject, and as motivation) in truly great writing. Upton explores forces that threaten our ability to fulfill the most daring aspirations, and she examines ambition's adjuncts, including failure, boredom, and purity, offering a provocative antidote: obsession. One chapter, "Bigamy for Beginners," celebrates the nerve needed to cross boundaries between genres. Ultimately Upton argues for a new perception of literary art as "a good secret" for our era, when readers' interior lives and our imaginations are under threat as never before.