As far as days go, yesterday was hard to beat. I woke to a flurry of excitement on my Facebook feed. Apparently, there was a review of Ten Thousand Stories in The Washington Post.

And what a review.

It was, quite frankly, the sort of thing that any writer or artist dreams will be written about his or her work. And not just because it was flattering (which it was), but because the reviewer (in this case, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Dirda) really got what we do. Instead of just describing the mechanics of the book and praising its novelty, Dirda dug into what makes Robbi and me tick.

He mentioned the introductory letter with Robbi’s redactions. He referenced the legacy of the mix-and-match format, going to Raymond Queneua’s One Hundred Million Million Poems. He aptly described our stories as “tales of desperate yearning, lost hopes, sexual transgression and broken hearts and bodies.” He likened my style to that of two of my literary heroes, Edward Gorey and Daniel Handler (AKA, Lemony Snicket). He described Robbi’s illustrations as potentially giving “even Salvador Dali nightmares.”

And he talked about Bobbledy Books. And Idiots’Books. Because to really understand what we’re up to in any one book is to understand what we’re up to in making all the different types of books that we do. Dirda understands this. And it was immensely gratifying to hear him say it.

He concludes with this paragraph, which felt so right it made me cry.

What draws me to the various books of Swanson and Behr — there are more than 50 — is their never-ending exuberance and flair for mischief. The couple gently mock themselves, their writing and their art, not to mention literature, history, technology and politics, and yet their deep love for each other, their children and their crazy work always shines through.

The thing that really good writers can do, whether poets or novelists or literary critics, is to give voice to that which we sense but do not fully know, to help us understand ourselves a bit better than we did before. I like the idea that what Robbi and I are up to is “gentle mockery,” but always against a backdrop/foil of love. We’re offering critique, not just for the sake of pointing out flaw, but because we yearn for the world to be better, and because we believe that it can be.

That’s what I learned from Dirda yesterday. It’s a pretty important lesson.

Here he is, with Robbi and me, at the Chestertown Book Festival a few years back. Lucky for us, he lives in Washington, and so was able to drive over to speak at the Book Plate that day. We met, we gave him some books, and have been the lucky beneficiaries of his good opinion ever since.

As if getting high praise from one of the nation’s leading literary critics wasn’t enough, the real joy of yesterday was the outpouring of support and excitement from our friends around the country and world. On Facebook, on Twitter, via email, in person. It reminded us that are so many people on this wild adventure with us. Thank you all for your support, for being a part of this thing, for making our lives so much bigger and more interesting than they would be without you.

Here’s the review, should you care to read it. It’s actually pretty funny. At one point, Dirda muses over what Robbi might look like in skimpy lingerie. No joke.