Summary

The next chapter is titled “erikas.” Author Doyle describes getting a phone call from her friend Erika, whom Doyle describes as always having loved art but who had decided to do what her business executive mother wanted, and go to business school. She then got married, had children, and struggled for years to calm her urge to make art. Eventually, she decided to go to art school. When the phone call came, Doyle says, she excitedly asked how art school was going. Erika then said, according to the author, that she quit because it seemed so selfish in light of what her husband and kids needed. This leads the author into an extended contemplation-slash-rant on how women are trained by society to train their own desires out of sight. “The epitome of womanhood,” she says, “is to lose one’s self completely. This...