It would be another two decades before I came upon the words that made me think I had a story to tell—the opening words of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: You must not tell anyone, my mother said, what I am about to tell you. The immigrant mother's prohibition to her daughter reminded me of my own mother's warning about spreading family secrets. In the face of California's fame for blatancy—in the face of pervasive light, ingenuousness, glass-and-aluminum housing, bikinis, billboards—Mrs. Hong recommended concealment.

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)