The first time it happened, he was sitting in the kitchen behind me. I was at the counter cutting vegetables for dinner when my older son said, "When God talked to me earlier today, before I went to school…" That’s how he spoke as a child. He was only 11, but his diction was formal, […]
Michael Dorris: Lessons in Anguish and Drink
January 7, 2008 by
I’ve spent the day researching the life of Michael Dorris: reading him, reading about him. And the dark, frantic moral of his story seems to be simply that some lives are unlivable. This is not a comforting thought. He was an extraordinary writer. No matter what his myriad sins, this man had a way on […]
What I Learned from Erica Kane
December 9, 2007 by
I think it’s time you knew: I watch a soap opera. Not every day, not even every week, and never, ever in real time. (Not only is it a depressing thing to do at noon, I simply can’t stomach all those commercials for floor cleaning products and maxi-pads with wings.) What I do is record […]
Long Day's Journey
November 23, 2007 by
I’m an unreliable narrator. You should know this. Here are my flaws: I’m alternately delighted and devastated by other people (there is, for me, little middle ground); I look for meaning in everything I see, whether or not it exists; and I believe too fervently in my own ability to change circumstances, no matter what […]