IN THE summer of 2021, I decided to attempt a major Marie Kondo–style tidying-up of my office, radically emptying closets and drawers and tossing out reams of old papers and files I’d clung to—bafflingly—for decades. Opening a slender drawer in my secretary-style desk, I discovered at the very bottom two elegant 8½ x 11–inch folders. One was black, the other a dark blue. Inside the first folder I found a handsome certificate printed on creamy paper. The border was black and red, and inside, at the top, was a shiny golden medallion: New England Society Book Award Winner. The certificate listed my name, the year of my award, and the title of my second novel and stated that the award was “in recognition for an outstanding contribution to New England culture and its proud literary tradition.”
This award was the reason that every paperback copy of wore a gold medal on thelet this certificate languish in a drawer all these years.
