The incoherence of the literary critics

My friend sent a few text messages, asking for a pep talk. I'm excellent at these, so I told her sure, and we arranged a time to call.

—Give me the biggest, most over the top one you can possibly imagine, she said. I'm feeling pretty low.

My friend was both a genius and a loser. She was romantically unsuccessful (on the roller-coaster of hookups and situa…