there is no way I can write a meaningful review of this book. Hathaway wrote something miraculous in a time that it shouldn't have been possible. even today it feels too soon. we're still not ready.

ignore the marketing surrounding this (if you happen to come into contact with it). The Little Locksmith isn't easily reduced to any one thing, and it's certainly not about someone "overcoming disability" or whatever easy narrative sells. it is about someone who loves a house. it is about female sexuality. it is about the female body. it is about the female mind. it is about death. it is about boredom. it is about going insane. it is about tenderness. this is, in my mind, a cornerstone work of female existentialism.

notice in the epilogue that when she writes about the christian god, she sounds very unlike herself. what happened? which censor is to blame? or is it fear of the death that was coming for her even as her story was being slowly told in the evening paper?

we will never, never have her again. one day the last person to read this book will finish it. maybe in our lifetimes. her sisters are all around us. there is no changing that, but maybe we can change what we allow.