On the Fourth of July, a friend interrupted my doomscrolling to send me a copy of Anne Lamott’s Washington Post column “Does Trumpland chaos bode better times ahead? I say yes. Happy Fourth!” It was a lifeline. Lamott wrote, “I am calling for us to move into a new phase of resistance: hope and joy. In ghastly times, these are subversive.”

Lamott is the igniter of the raw-truth-mother-writing explosion. With her bestselling book Operating Instructions, she gave mothers permission to admit that—despite your best intentions—you will screw up and you may think unthinkable things about the same child you love beyond reason. She gave us permission to laugh at ourselves. Then she brought that same humor and unvarnished honesty to her famous writing manifesto Bird by Bird, as well as countless books on family, faith, community, and overcoming addiction. Each book includes tiny gems of wisdom on how to climb out of life’s blackest holes. Now, at 70, she has just published her 20th book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love, another antidote for a world that seems to have lost its moral center.

We met on Zoom. She was in her Northern California home, sporting red glasses and her signature blonde dreadlocks. Just as I imagined, she was funny, irreverent, wise, charming.

—Pamela Alma Weymouth