Three years ago, when the galleys of my book arrived, my mother, spouse, and I gazed down at them, excited by how, well, book-like they looked. A note from my editor informed us that it was our (my) job to find any errant comma or line break or typo.

Since the galleys arrived on a Tuesday, my then seventy-eight year old mother, retired for the better part of a decade, would be the first reader while we middle-aged folk went to work.

“It’s very good,” my mother informed me on Thursday.

Before...