WITH THE PUBLICATION of these two novellas, Christopher Bollas has neatly inverted one of his most thoughtful notions, life as an aesthetic project, and given his audience twin literary texts with all the hallmarks of human experience. There are some absolutely joyous moments, a few islands of passion, a handful of thunderous “aha!“s, and many points of quiet appreciation. However, and again much as in life, there are also a number of stresses and strains that are equally present and powerful.

I remember hearing Bollas read a chapter from Dark several years ago at a conference in Santa Fe. In introducing it, he noted that he hoped his try at fiction would free him from the disingenuous tone of certainty and closure that more formal book and essay writing requires, or at least attracts. It was as if he longed to tell his truths from an overt position of play, a point he echoes in the Preface to Dark, and something that long-time readers of Bollas can easily imagine. I would add to this my fantasy that he also