“But hidden drawers, lockable diaries, and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. [. . .] Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel’s skull underneath her bed, but no one wanted to know. None of this was particularly an affliction; or rather, it appeared so only on retrospect, once a solution had been found.” —Ian McEwan, Atonement Like most of us with the writing impulse, I fear total exposure and hope for nano-flashes of profundity, but if I did confess my deepest secrets here, like Briony's squirrel skull hidden under her bed, I doubt anyone would care. Yet here I am. What, however, is the point, anyway of all this honesty, as a much-older Briony asks at the end of Atonement? Who does it benefit? Why do it at all?
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