I was in graduate school when I realized the importance of having a Designated Horror Friend. I spent a lot of time in creative-writing workshops, moderating my tone to sound “productive” while offering my peers feedback on their work. We were all careful with one another, but a layer of brutality ran just below the surface, an implicit understanding that sometimes calling a classmate’s story “interesting” meant you actually thought it was trash. Our politeness kept the program from descending into violence, but it sometimes left me craving a more honest, instinctual response.
