Leslie Jamison hates to use the word “failed” to describe her second novel—at some point she’ll pick it up again—but the assessment persists. She had planned to write about the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, but, daunted by the project, she started writing essays instead. Her collection The Empathy Exams covers a lot of ground, from ultramarathons to Bolivia to a prison complex, but each piece, no matter its setting, asks a similar set of questions. What are the limits of […]