A review by spacestationtrustfund
Vera by Stacy Schiff

3.0

In a 2019 interview, Wendell Berry described his relationship with his wife, Tanya, like this:

I work alone, but always with her presence in my mind. And she is somebody I want to impress. I'm going to write this with the hope that it'll help her to love me. I feel the stakes are pretty high. I'm in a conversation with her that hasn't ended yet.

That is, essentially, this book. The first time I read that quote—"I'm in a conversation with her that hasn't ended yet"—I was so struck by it that I wrote it down and thought about it for at least a week straight. It is, to this day, the best and most succinct definition of what being in love is like that I've ever encountered.