When I was living in West Africa (about ten years ago now) I read fashion magazines like you wouldn't believe. Consumed them. Inhaled them even. Back home in the US I found the articles in Cosmopolitan so insipid I could barely stand to look at them, but thousands of miles away, surrounded by abject poverty, living without running water or electricity, those same articles became the most interesting and exciting parts of my day.

At the same time, my normal socio-economic nonfiction reading list became repulsive to me. Reading about the consequences of globalization was too depressing when you were living in the middle of those consequences. When I moved back to New York I could go back to reading them. I could happily have exciting fantasies about all the ways I was going to save the world, but when I was in Africa I couldn't read them.

The funny thing about escapist fantasy is that where you want to escape to depends on where you are coming from. When I lived in the shallow world of Cosmopolitan and Vogue I wanted to read about the developing world. When I lived in the developing world I decompressed with fantasies of shallow consumerism.

People keep saying my books are all about realism over fantasy, but to be honest that isn't true. I mean, it's partially true I suppose. But every story is still a fantasy for me. It's just not the fantasy most other people want to escape to. It seems most other people are coming from a different direction.

For example, I tend to find stories about great love healing trauma super depressing while everyone else gushes about how romantic and inspiring they are. No matter how hard I try it's impossible for me to see things that way.

Through most of my twenties my older brother had been in and out of mental institutions, not because he was crazy but because he has Aspergers. In most cases people with Aspergers are harmless, but we grew up in a community with a lot of gang activity. The principal way my brother learned to communicate was through violence and intimidation. That's the way things work in certain parts of New York. You talk tough, you act tough, and sometimes you beat the shit out of someone to make sure people know not to fuck with you.

Unfortunately if you grow up in this kind of environment, have Aspergers and then try to move to a small liberal arts college where people do not understand threatening to rip someone's kidney's out through their nose can be a term of endearment ... things get a little crazy. With any form of autism frustrations and confusion over communication problems can trigger anger and violence ... and that's what happened. For years my brother wandered through life behaving like a complete psychopath. He attacked my parents, he attacked me, then he would run into the basement and cry. These were horrible sounds, not at all like sobbing but like someone being tortured.

Through most of my early twenties I lived in fear of the possibility that one day the police would call to tell me my brother (who could not live on his own) had finally killed one or both of our parents. It really fucked me up. My brother and I used to be so close. I kept trying to recreate that relationship with other men in my life because I missed him so much. He seemed impossibly lost. No amount of love or support from our family could bring him back or save him. He seemed to resent us at the same time he was ashamed and depressed about failing us.

It was an awful time.

I understand the appeal of "healed with love" stories. The idea that you can make things better just by being a good person and offering your love and support is comforting because it it means you have some control over the situation. If something horrible happens to someone you love, you can do something to help. You can find a way to make things better.

But most people never think this idea through to its natural conclusion: what if your love doesn't work? Well then you must work harder, you must do more to show your love, you must prove yourself. And if that doesn't work? Isn't the obvious conclusion that your love isn't good enough. That you yourself aren't good enough? If love can heal and your love isn't doing the trick then either you're not good enough or your love isn't as good as someone else's.

That to me is a super depressing thought. So I can't enjoy these fantasies. What everyone else finds romantic and inspiring I see as a reminder of how deficient and unsatisfactory I must be because I've tried to be the source of healing love and support and it didn't work.

Maybe two years ago my Mom and I had a funny conversation. "I'm so sick of putting my life on hold while I wait for your brother to get better," she said. "I'm not going to do that anymore."

And so she started taking vacations with my Dad. They started looking for a retirement community that suited them and making plans to sell their house. This is the house that my older brother and I grew up in, my brother has NEVER lived anywhere else, and does not have enough money to live on his own. Five years ago the idea of selling before my brother had gotten back on his feet would have been unthinkable. Now my parents regularly have these conversations in front of him. They leave him on his own for weeks at a time while they go on cruises.

I'm sure to most people this sounds unbelievably callous and selfish. Surely this behavior could only worsen the depression and anxiety that intensified my brother's problems. Surely he must have felt like he was being rejected or left behind.

But instead a funny thing happened: he started to get better. I mean DRAMATICALLY better. Like... night and day. Today when I talk to him he's like a completely different person. Still Autistic, still confused about the world and still a little depressed about his inability to thrive in it, but docile, kind, supportive. He has a steady office job where he is well liked and respected. He has a serious girlfriend. He is saving money and planning for the future.

The last three years have thrown the whole "healing with love" concept into a completely different light for me. When you're in trouble watching the people you care about suffer because of you can only make you feel worse and most people "heal with love" by sacrificing themselves or enduring pain for their love's behalf. My brother would feel guilty about hurting our parents, then he would get down on himself, then he would get frustrated which would eventually trigger rage which would lead to more guilt, more shame, more depression and so on and so on and so. When my mom finally said "We're going to go have fun now, bye!" it broke the cycle of guilt-shame-depression.

And the same thing held true with the guy who I based the character of Mark Dorsett on. The full year we were together the more in love we were the sicker he got. When I finally broke away and decided to just take care of myself and my own happiness, he started to get better. Maybe one day he'll be healthy enough that we can be together, but maybe not.

To me the optimistic fantasy is not the suggestion that true love can heal, it's the idea that you can love someone who is broken, be happy and not have to feel guilty about being happy while they are suffering. That your happiness actually gives the other person strength. No matter how bad things get for them, they know that you-- a person so valuable to them-- are healthy and happy and safe.

Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself which you'd rather have: The hell of watching people you love suffer and knowing that they suffer because of you. Or watching people you love thrive and knowing that they're wishing the best for you too.

So I can't really appreciate the escapist fantasy of broken people being healed by love. I'm just coming from the wrong direction.