things I read in summer 2003
I've had many unsuccessful attempts to track what I was reading. Among them, a little notebook covered with fish. These entries are from there...
The Lovely Bones by Sebold
Haunting story (literally) narrated by the ghost of a girl raped and killed in the opening scene. The rest is her view from heaven...
"A fourteen, my sister sailed away from me into a place I'd never been. In the walls of my sex there was horror and blood, in the walls of hers there were windows." (p 125)
Anyone who has even had a friend who told them about sexual trauma can relate to an aspect of this quote.
Great last line: "I wish you all a long and happy life."
Straight Man by Russo
College professor in a small town, only moderately successful, starts talking out loud by accident, when he thinks he's not speaking. People talk back. He melts down slowly, until one day he threatens to kill a duck a day until he has a budget for the English department.
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
(I hope she will write more novels...)
Small, elegantly written book, interweaves a story of a present-day marriage in trouble with past recollections of a girlhood friendship. Amazing use of imagery, of prose as poetry. Set in a French Canadian town called Horsehearts.
The Lovely Bones by Sebold
Haunting story (literally) narrated by the ghost of a girl raped and killed in the opening scene. The rest is her view from heaven...
"A fourteen, my sister sailed away from me into a place I'd never been. In the walls of my sex there was horror and blood, in the walls of hers there were windows." (p 125)
Anyone who has even had a friend who told them about sexual trauma can relate to an aspect of this quote.
Great last line: "I wish you all a long and happy life."
Straight Man by Russo
College professor in a small town, only moderately successful, starts talking out loud by accident, when he thinks he's not speaking. People talk back. He melts down slowly, until one day he threatens to kill a duck a day until he has a budget for the English department.
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
(I hope she will write more novels...)
Small, elegantly written book, interweaves a story of a present-day marriage in trouble with past recollections of a girlhood friendship. Amazing use of imagery, of prose as poetry. Set in a French Canadian town called Horsehearts.
