I had always dreamed of a job that engaged in some aspect of the business of books. Although I was writing novels and taking on freelance work—for a time I became the queen of the 800-word feature story for a couple of international newspapers, accepting any assignment that came along, from writing about children’s birthday parties to the black market economy in India—I had not had a steady paycheck since my twenties.

One Shabbat, toward the end of the morning service, Tova Mirvis was stricken by a debilitating headache, in which “the pain concentrated along the line where my hat met my head.”

“Tell me,” Kurt Vonnegut asks Jane Marie Cox, his future wife, “would you enjoy living with me, sleeping with me, leading a carnival life?”