Death

Throughout the collection, Patchett explores the ways in which aging makes the individual more aware of death's inevitability. Patchett establishes these thematic interests in her introductory essay, "Essays Don't Die." She reflects upon her personal sense of mortality by considering the connection between writing and death. "The first time I remember seriously thinking about my own death," the essay begins," I was twenty-six years old and working on my first novel" (1). Patchett goes on to explain the ways in which her lack of outlining and note-taking made her yet-unfinished stories and characters feel vulnerable. "Were I to die, I'd be taking the entire world of my novel with me" (2). Years later, Patchett has come to understand the novel, and fiction as a whole, as allegorical for life itself. The fragility of the artist's imaginary worlds are not unlike the fragility of the human life. Writing essays, she avers...