He asks if a harsh review can still be a host. She says a host who locks the door is a person with a different job. Then she refuses the easy version, the one where kindness means softness of mind. Hospitality, Adele says, is the labour of making a seat that can bear a guest’s actual weight. A review can do that. It can describe the work so accurately that the maker feels seen, and still say that the third movement fails to feed anyone. Mateo asks her for an example and she gives him the supper piece, briefly, without spoiling the argument she is still writing. What she will not do is perform generosity as a tone. Tone, she says, is cheap. Accuracy is the more expensive welcome, and she would like to be able to afford it more often than she does.#
This is an excerpt. The complete piece is in the print and digital edition of Issue 02.