Never Let Me Go is fucking heartbreaking. Still need to read The Ask.

I'd argue that that kind of removal doesn't just apply to authors of fiction. I and several other educated, mostly employed, sorta-creatives tend to hover in a sort of limbo between smart, well-off professionalism and bankruptcy. Sundry illustrators, graphic designers, photographers, writers, say they are such even though they also work as servers or in grocery stores. They (or we) all imagine a kind of potential class where they (or we) will only be creative professionals. Conversations tend to avoid any and all discussion of finance, even nebulously. There is just the tacit assumption that everything is bad, but being dealt with. No one wants to say "I am poor." That is too definitive and final. They (or we) want to believe that there is some kind of amazing entree into a different world that could, by chance or skill, be in the near future. Class isn't talked about. It is an embarrassing and temporary setback, they (or we) hope.