One of the most honest accounts of the actual life of a writer : Great House

The New Yorker excerpted some of Nicole Krauss's "Great House," possibly in the 20 under 40 series, and the excerpt didn't do the piece justice; I've started reading the novel and so far am very impressed, particularly first section, called All Rise - in which a woman narrates to a judge (the text interspersed with a few superfluous "your honor's") an account of how she was for a time the owner (or keeper) of a writing desk left to her by a young Chilean poet who (apparently) later became one of the disappeared in the Chilean oppression. First of all, this section is I would say the best and most honest account I've read - recently? ever? - of the actual life of a writer - the hard work, lack of glamor and glory, the occasional joy of recognition, the satisfaction with doing the job well, the fetishization of objects, the strain the profession puts on relationships, the strange disappearance into the lives of others who don't actually exist - Krauss perfectly captures all this as well as the sense of a time and place, NYC in the 80s or so, the crazy devotion writers can have to the beauty of poetry - I really loved this section of the novel. The next section takes place in Israel, the 3rd, which I'm still reading, in London - both strong accounts of complex relations, the London particularly sharp as, again, it focuses on a writer's life - my only concern with this very promising books is how effectively, if at all, Krauss will tie these strands together - like many writers in her cohort, she has a tendency to poke around with a lot of narrative tics and devices when it would serve her better to just tell the story - she obviously has the ability and the material.