An Illinois-born author, she is best known for her 2007 work, Twilight of the Superheroes. In 2009, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
She worked as an editorial assistant at The New York Review of Books. She published her first short story collection, Transactions in a Foreign Currency, in 1986.
She taught at Columbia University and the University of Virginia.
She grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. She is in a relationship with actor
She admired the work of author C.S. Lewis.
