“Readings,” the writer answers-no more, no less. Walker knew that her words, even the most diaristic, could well be destined for a public audience, and she knew this even before a word of hers was ever published. This conviction seems a precondition for a writing career, the kind of vanity without which one writes in vain. The pages of the journal leave a record of both the pulsing epiphanies and the irritations of daily existence, and chart, for a dimly perceived intimate reader, the progress of a literary pilgrim. Pain, joy, spells of depression, unease, engagement, even disaffection-all are material.
