Forty years ago, COMMENTARY published the debut short story of a very, very young writer—so young that she had only just completed her freshman year at Harvard. It was called “ Variant Text .” In the four decades that have followed, Allegra Goodman has published 11 books, been short-listed for the National Book Award, and placed a host of stories and essays in publications ranging from the New Yorker to Good Housekeeping . Reading it today, what is most remarkable about “Variant Text” is how