Robin Romm: Great Neurotics (January 2014)

What makes a neurotic narrator so compelling, so full of life for so many writers (and readers)? Romm’s lecture explains the craft implications of hyper-vigilance, obsessiveness, and overthinking, and explores how these qualities make for excellent prose in works such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Dorothy Baker’s Cassandra at the Wedding, and others.