Why is critic Dale Peck so mean? “Peck is hardly the first writer to enlist a congenial cultural form in the effort to repair injuries and redeem losses: Transforming such experiences and emotions into other idioms and forms is part of what makes culture emotionally resonant. But when a writer bends existing genres to suit such purposes, the critical question—and perhaps a larger question for criticism itself—is this: At what point does transformation fail, leaving a writer mired in psychodrama and family repetition?”