Reading novels breaks down the boundary between “me” and “not me.”
Over at the Atlantic, Nicholas Dames writes about a deeply worrying feeling that contemporary fiction isn’t living up to Cervantes’s standards, opting for nihilistic individualism rather than empathy.
![National Poetry Month: “WHEN PRAYER DIDN’T AWAY THE GAY, MY DAD TAUGHT ME HOW TO PLAY DOOM ON THE FAMILY COMPUTER [Golden Shovel]”](https://therumpus.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/pic-Ty-Raso.jpeg)


