Lynch is a freelance writer living in northern New Mexico. In the following essay, she discusses the disparity between ideas of normalcy and actual events.

Characteristic of the work of Tobias Wolff, "Say Yes" displays an everyday event and turns it inside out, illustrating the machinations of normalcy. In the course of an argument between a married couple, he makes explicit the disparity between the individual's idea of what is happening and actual events. Rather than dissect the human self-concept, Wolff displays the gap between self-image and behavior. He achieves the effects of both intimacy and simple directness through his use of lean, simple subject-verb sentence construction (in which the verb follows the subject) and few adjectives, adverbs, and descriptions. The simplicity of the sentences precludes explicating causal relationships; these are left to the reader to deduce, demanding active participation on the part of the reader. Surface...