Writers write because they believe they have something to say. What that something is may not be the same thing the reader gets. Then again, it may be.
A very elderly patron stopped by my desk at the library not long ago, to see about expanding his literary horizons. A heavy consumer of biographies and crime thrillers, he’d never read a classic. I knew from earlier conversations that he was of Scandinavian descent and had grown up on the northern plains, so I suggested he start with one of Willa Cather’s novels, adding that it was her lyric, Midwestern prose that had first inspired me to write. When I saw him again, about a week later, he had already checked out and read O Pioneers! and was returning it along with my novel,Unexpected Joy. We talked with enthusiasm for a while about Cather’s writing style and her vivid evocation of places he remembered and people he could have known. Then he held up my novel. “Now, your book,” he said, “your book had me curious to know what it was that you would write a novel to say.” It was a good question, and one I'd never been asked. I'd been logging periodicals while we chatted, now I paused and looked at him directly.
“And what did you decide?”
“I decided,” he said, slowly, “you wanted to say that old people like me are important.”
It’s generally frowned upon, at least in our library, to leap across a desk and bear-hug a patron, so I didn’t.