I read a profile in an old New York Times Magazine that cheered me, grimly: Paul Shrader, former film lion who made Taxi Driver, directing a script by former literary lion Bret Easton Ellis, starring Lindsay Lohan, we all know who that is, and the amazing thing is, they were all down and out, each of them having achieved victories that did nothing to secure their futures, every day just another day when they have to get up and prove themselves again. The story told me, in a way I found reassuring, that there is no final victory, just the next day and what you do with it. In which case victory would be the ability to embrace the next day with hope and courage, as if you hadn’t lived through all the days before.

Just finished “Wonder,” which was a marvel– a beautiful, simple story about a boy with a horrible affliction. Elephant man was that story, and Mask, which just goes to show that every story has already been told (Cyrano) and no story has ever been told (Hunchback of Notre Dame) the way you will tell it.

What made Wonder a wonder was her voice, her insights about human behavior, her humanity. And her characters, who had longings and secrets, who betrayed each other, and loved each other, who got in trouble and tried. Her voice and her characters kept me reading a familiar story as if I had never heard it before.