“Beyond aspects of pain that are physical, thought Oppenheimer, sickness or injury or privation, beyond the so-called obvious, suffering can be a work of art. It can be made of buried and rising things, helpless and undiscovered, song of frustrated want, silence after desire. It can be the test of the self falling short, constrained, distorted, disturbed or rebuffed, the vacuum left by longing, call without an answer.”

American novelist

Lydia Millet is an American novelist. Her 2020 novel A Children's Bible was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. She has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her work has drawn praise for its language and style, with Salon describing it as “flawlessly beautiful” and suggesting that it reaches toward an experience that comes before language itself. The New York Times Book Review named A Children's Bible one of the ten best books of the year.