Levy, who cries on escalators, doesn’t hate her children. She doesn’t hate her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Rather, she hates that a woman must extend herself to assume a domestic role and become a stranger to the person she once was.

The more the French view me as part of their country, the more I see myself as belonging here with them. With my blonde hair and daily scarves, I look the part. It’s easier to accept superficial validation such as compliments on my accent and cultural ease from the French than it is to reconcile my fading American patriotism.

"I loved that, no matter where the characters went underground, they came out into the same space..I could see a double-paged spread showing a huge old fashioned attic — full of the different entry points. To me, the story said, whatever you think you know about the rules of life, forget it, ain’t necessarily true."  

My love affair with monsters can be traced to my eccentric childhood, of course.

Too many stories teach us, my friend said to me the other day as we walked aimlessly around the city, that we’re all supposed to be heroes of our lives. He blamed capitalism. Perhaps too easy a foil in 2019.

What is the meaning of an imaginary friend? Appearing mainly to children but at times lasting into adulthood, invented companions can signal madness, creativity, both, or neither. Sometimes, they simply serve as company.