Black women are down 297,000, but men’s gains have surged to +621,000. That’s a 324,000 widening of the gender gap in two months—a 34% jump. Since February, the swing between black women’s losses and men’s gains approaches 1 million jobs.

Let me back out of my flights of thought to again thank you for powerfully connecting us all through this medium. Abandonment and loss are less permanent when named and shared. Compassion is the way through.

I'm curious about writing as a willed antidote to forms of malaise, and the possibilities and limitations of cultural diagnosis as ultimately life-affirming.

Thank you for your generosity in sharing your striking insight and analysis with us. I'm reverberating with so many thoughts about the novel and illness, technologies of the self, and Thomas Mann.