Literary Nonfiction. "Human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life," wrote Willa Cather. She wasn't just kidding. The perpetual conflict between our need for others and our need to be alone underlies each of the first-person essays in this collection, which voice the difficulties, satisfactions, and absurdities of finding one's way in the social wilderness. The author takes a sentimental journey to New York, his hometown, remembered...