Aura, the new book from Hillary Leftwich, is a lot of things — a mother’s correspondence with her son, a writer’s origin story, and an at times harrowing account of abuse. It maintains the same formal innovation and structural intricacies that characterized Leftwich’s previous book while also offering a candid look back at its author’s life. Leftwich and I conversed about the process of writing Aura and the act of revisiting the personal histories contained within.