Humans use tech to connect. A novelist explores whether it’s working.
I first met author Jennifer Egan in late September at the Festival America, a Paris book fair celebrating some 70 North American authors. Hundreds of literary fans milled around the mazelike configuration of tables, stacked books, and writers at the salon du livre, in hopes of making a brief but meaningful connection with their favorite authors.
Ms. Egan was seated calmly amid the flurry, a lighthouse in the storm, and asked if we could speak later, over Zoom, so that she could “stay present” for the people who had shown up to see her.
It was apropos, given that her latest book,
