Ok, well, I sure do hope Arthur Danto (do your own google search if you are not familiar with this ICON!) doesn’t mind me posting his email to me, here, about AAL:

Dear Jill,

If I had realized how much I would enjoy your book, I would have torn
into it instantly instead of wating for the waters to part. It is realy
a wonderful book. I thought, for example, of Henry James - not the
language, but the way he situates his characters so that they can really
concentrate on their feelings, without worrying about the rent. Even
when there is the preoccupaton with the death of a mother and - really -
of a father, the emotional payoff is the crux. I thought to how the
traditional relationship, as far back as Europides, between heroine and
handmaiden has now become between heroine and gay male pal. And then the
dialogue! The one-line zingers back and forth like arrows at Agincourt!
They serve to distinguish the people with whom a relationship is
possible from those that cannot talk the talk - like the replacement at
the end for the receptionist’s position, Charlotte - the dark sister.

Was Emily healed at the end? Not if she calls her shrink from the
parking lot while on the cusp of marriage. But she hasn’t lost the
reader, still on her side. I thought of Freud’s definition of the
criteria of cure: Lieben und arbeiten, Love and work. She hasn’t quite
met the second condition, but she’s going to be a better person than her
mom.

Congratulations! I couldn’t stop reading it until I read to the end. It
is a really engaging book

Me, Jill, now: Arthur wrote a wonderful review of GPN a few years ago. It was very unexpected, and I was just happy he took the time to read the second book.