Hope: a novel in stories

Sommer Schafer is a talented storyteller. I thoroughly enjoyed her most recent novel, Hope. It's a novel in stories, all set in the small town of Hope, Alaska. The characters are colorful and there's some fun overlapping in the storylines. Here are some tastes: 

Page 79:  Where Silver Face went after death, Bear didn't know. But there were entire populations of human ghosts in the woods. They were children and parents - families roaming incomplete; Tlingit warriors and Russian soldiers; contemporary folks looking, by their dress, more like the living than the dead; most in clothes, some not. Bear saw them all the time and knew without specifically knowing that they had always been there. 

Page 199:  With Dad at the TV, the three of us could play Scrabble, our old stand-by. We helped Mom clear the table and stack the dishwasher. "Leave the rest," she instructed, and we did, across the counters and in the sink. We were neck-and-neck until Mom strode ahead with the word "quiz" and Amy played off that with "quaff." When I knew that I would lose, as I usually did, Amy said, "Come on. Don't give up so easily." "I'm not!" The laugh I had tried for came out instead like a tired sigh. I had actually been trying really, really hard. 

This American Woman - A One-in-a-Billion Memoir

 Zarna Garg is truly entertaining. I found her memoir, This American Woman: A One-in-a-Billion Memoir, to be a fun and fast read. For someone so different from myself, she is very relatable. Things like motherhood, womanhood, not wanting to take the expected, established route. Zarna is heartwarming and astounding. She shows the drive and effort that it takes to succeed. And she's funny!

Page 110:  People will remind you every day that you are less than ideal. Don't make it easier for them by pointing out your own flaws. 

Page 147:  If becoming an Indian wife gave me back my security, becoming a mother gave me back my worth. Because of Zoya, I felt tethered to the rest of humanity for the first time. My daughter was clearly human; therefore I must be too. 

Page 154:  It took me years to realize that fixating on being "the perfect mother" is such a waste of talent that could be better used to solve real problems, like creating a robot babysitter that absorbs vomit.

The Frozen People

The first book of an Elly Griffiths series, The Frozen People, is a fun romp into time travel crime solving. Set in England, it's a thoroughly-built world of dimensional characters with interesting conversations. I liked how visceral it felt to be back in time, through Griffiths' carefully chosen details. It was fun that the main protagonist is in her 50s! The genre is mystery but didn't feel formulaic. Not all the murders/disappearances get resolved, but we were warned of this on the cover: "Some murders can't be solved in just one lifetime." It's well-positioned to be a successful series. Here are some quotes: 

Page 35:  "Isaac mentioned you the other day." 
        "Did he?" Ali fills their wine glasses while telling herself to be careful. 
        "Yes. He remembered meeting you at that reception. He was asking about your job. I said you were a police officer and he asked if I ever worried about you being in danger. I said that you were only working on cold cases." 
        "So cold they're frozen." Ali finishes the line. 

Page 121:  "Objects can have strange powers," says Templeton. "Don't you think? One has heard of cursed mirrors, of books that will kill you if read in a certain light. I suppose it's natural that one invests inanimate things with life. If a man sits in a chair all his life, will that seat not retain something of him?"

Raising Hare

Chloe Dalton's memoir, Raising Hare, is a dear account of a busy journalist's unexpected relationship with a wild hare. Their bond was made possible by the pandemic. Thoughtfully conveyed and certainly well-researched, Dalton shows how much one can learn from being open and listening to the natural world. I loved how respectful of the hare she was, and the introspection it inspired. 

Page 74:  The leveret would invite me to chase it, by coming close and jumping playfully. Then it would accelerate away from me, change direction mid-stride, and zoom back tantalisingly close before pulling away again, showing off its dazzling fleetness while I attempted to keep up, an ungainly figure trailing ridiculously in its wake. 

Page 95-96:  Maybe the hare's dubious reputation, I thought, has less to do with the hare itself than our habit as humans of persecuting that we do not understand, and our own conflicted natures. 

Page 262:  Since that first day when I found her it has felt as if a spell was cast over this corner of the earth, and me within it. I have stepped out of my usual life and had the privilege of an experience out of the ordinary. 

Crow Talk

Local to me is the setting of Crow Talk, by Eileen Garvin, which made for enjoyable reading. This tender fiction novel is thick with research and well-developed characters spending a summer at a lake, wrestling with loss and grief. Such lovely writing. 

Page 11:  Listening to the bird chorus almost made her want to get to work - a feeling that had eluded her for some time now. Work, which had been her mainstay, had disappeared with everything else. But she was tired, just so tired. She stayed where she was, listening to the familiar avian symphony around the little house. 

Page 56:  He'd taken his fingers out of his ears and was twisting them together, braiding and unbraiding them. She could feel his small animal energy fluttering about the room like a trapped bird. 

Page 178:  The mist was breaking up over the water and moving into the trees like a dream retreating from wakefulness. 

Harriet the Spy

This one's a re-read. I was going through some things and found my favorite book from childhood, Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. It was published in 1964. Looking back, this book inspired me in more ways than I'd remembered, and not all of them good. From playing Town and doing science experiments to observing (spying on) neighbors. I could certainly relate to feeling like everyone hated me. Harriet wrestles with figuring out the world, her place in it, how to think about things, and how to treat others. She wants to be a writer and so "works" at noticing details about people, and she fills notebooks with her observations and musings. Harriet's nurse is always quoting books. Mr. Withers named his twenty-six cats after writers and story characters, like Puck and Faulkner. Kids at school get a hold of her notebook, and Harriet has to deal with the consequences of her words. This story is a gem. 

Page 30:  Ole Golly says there is as many ways to live as there are people on the earth and I shouldn't go round with blinders but should see every way I can. Then I'll know what way I want to live and not just live like my family. 

Page 43:  "Writers don't care what they eat. They just care what you think of them..." 

Page 44:  "... Writers have a lot of bad dreams." 

Page 56:  The Robinsons were sitting, as they always were, staring into space. They never worked, and what was worse, they never even read anything. They bought things and brought them home and then they had people in to look at them. Otherwise they didn't seem to do a blessed thing. 

Page 106-7:  "I mean, what does it feel like to have somebody ask you?" Harriet was getting very impatient. 
            Ole Golly looked toward the window, folding something absently. "It feels... it feels-- you jump all over inside... you... as though doors were opening all over the world... It's bigger, somehow, the world." 
            "That doesn't make any sense," said Harriet sensibly. She sat down with a plop on the bed. 
            "Well, nonetheless, that's what you feel. Feeling never makes any sense anyway, Harriet; you should know that by now," Ole Golly said pleasantly. 
            "Maybe--" Harriet knew as she said it that it was a baby thing to say but she couldn't help it-- "maybe there's a lot of things I don't know." 

Playground

Richard Powers' most recent novel, Playground, is an ambitious tale of themes as grand as planetary survival and as intimate as trust and friendship. I found it complex and lovely, and quite quotable.  

Page 6:  The world with all its bright and surprising contents was created out of boredom and emptiness. Everything started by holding still and waiting. 

Page 44:  Power, the mayor decided, was an isolating thing, especially when power was powerless. 

Page 59:  Play was evolution's way of building brains, and any creature with a brain as developed as a giant oceanic manta sure used it. If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play. 

Page 138:  I've started to wander and not just at night. I'll materialize in the kitchen without having gone there. Or out in the garage. Or in the park two blocks down the street... I'm going to need an ID bracelet. 

Page 155:  Of all the things we humans excel at, moving the goal posts may be our best trick. 

Page 200:  "Decisions are rarely made by reason but almost always by temperament, and that doesn't change much as people get older." 

Page 214:  "... People are like sculptures. You can mold them a little when they start out, but not much. A body wants to be what a body wants to be. ..."

To the Lighthouse

Virginia Woolf is a formidable force. I'll admit that her novel, To the Lighthouse, was not an easy read, but the rumination of it, after, was delicious. It read as a stream-of consciousness, the point of view flitting from one character to another. Flitting emotions as well. This was dizzying and yet satisfying. Absolutely worth it. 

Consider this delightful exchange between husband and wife:

Page 23:  There wasn't the slightest possible chance that they could go to the Lighthouse tomorrow, Mr. Ramsey snapped out irascibly. 

                How did he know, she asked. The wind often changed. 

                The extraordinary rationality of her remark, the folly of women's minds enraged him. He had ridden through the valley of death, been shattered and shivered; and now she flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told lies. He stamped his foot on the stone step. 'Damn you,' he said. But what had she said? Simply that it might be fine tomorrow. So it might. 

                Not with the barometer falling and the wind due west. 

                To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people's feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilization so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bent her head as if to let the pelt of jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked. There was nothing to be said. 

                He stood by her in silence. Very humbly, at length, he said that he would step over and ask the Coastguards if she liked. 

                There was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him. 

People of the Book

Complex and intriguing, Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book takes the reader on a book's journey through time. But the point isn't the book, it's the people around it. It's the people that created it and protected it. Here are a few quotes:

Page 195:  "Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other' - it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists...same old, same old. It seems to me the book, at this point, bears witness to all that." 

Page 214:  I let the white grains fall from my hand onto a weary, rust-edged lettuce leaf. Thousands of feet below, the salty waves of an unseen ocean heaved and crashed in the dark. 

Page 232:  It did not even occur to David to consult Ruti herself about this, or any other matter. Had he done so, he would have been most surprised by the result. He did not realize it, but his love for his daughter marched hand in hand with a kind of contempt for her. He saw his daughter as a kind-hearted, dutiful, but vaguely pitiable soul. David, like many people, had made the mistake of confusing "meek" with "weak." 

Page 239:  But some things on earth were possible, and some were not, and Ruti knew the difference. 

Piranesi

I love to read what my daughter is reading, so when Sidra recommended Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke, I was eager. I read it while visiting Germany and Spain in September, which seemed an apt setting. The story has a European feel, in its evocative world of labyrinthine halls filled with great staircases and marble statues. Very transportive. The tale is told from an intriguing point of view - by someone who had lost grasp of what is happening, who he is, and how he'd come to be there. Yet he strives to be rational and scientific. He keeps journals and lists. It was a trip to watch him evolve. 

What a cool story. Here are two quotes: 

Page 27:  It was the very depths of Winter. Snow was piled on the Steps of the Staircases. Every Statue in the Vestibules wore a cloak or shroud or hat of snow. Every Statue with an outstretched Arm (of which there are many) held an icicle like a dangling sword or else a line of icicles hung from the Arm as if it were sprouting feathers.

Page 174:  He led me to a sitting room. The Berlioz was playing. He turned down the volume but it still played in the background of our conversation, the soundtrack of catastrophe.

All the Birds in the Sky

I'm part of a book club with wide and eclectic taste. All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders is a quirky, creative sci fi with a twist on the classic science-versus-magic scenario. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of opposing views with the same goal: to save humanity. All about perspective. 

These are some pretty random quotes that don't explain much of the storyline, which was hip and satisfying. In any case, I was charmed by the author's relatable moments and cool imagery. 

Page 32:  On the long drive home Laurence tuned out his parents explaining to him that life isn't an adventure, for chrissake, life is a long slog and a series of responsibilities and demands. When Laurence was old enough to do what he liked, he would be old enough to understand he couldn't do what he liked. 

Page 243:  Magic was always bound to claim her in the end, in retrospect, but love was the most susceptible to fandom failure of all. 

Page 254:  The chapel clenched granite and stained-glass fists, their knuckles spiked with gargoyles. 

Tom Lake

The other day, I went to hear Ann Patchett speak about her latest novel, Tom Lake. Ann was in conversation with Cheryl Strayed, another generous and supportive author. What a fun evening! For one thing, my girlfriends and I made a night of it with a dinner out beforehand. I wasn't quite finished with the book at the time of the reading - mere pages to go. But I later found how much was in those pages - a very satisfying end to a satisfying story. 

It is the early months of covid19. While working the cherry farm with her three daughters (who moved home because of the pandemic), Lara tells the story of how she came to be dating a man who would become the most famous actor of her generation. She'd played the part of Emily in Our Town while in high school, went on to play the part in college, was discovered, and eventually spends a summer performing the part, at Tom Lake in Michigan. This is where Lara dated Peter Duke, back when she was the age her daughters are now. 

There was much I could relate to in the book, and I love the way Ann writes. I had to restrain myself from quoting full pages. Beautifully crafted. 

Page 23:  Nineteen eighty-four was nothing like what Orwell had envisioned and still it was a world nearly impossible to explain. 

Page 25:  "You can't pretend this isn't happening," Maisie said.    I couldn't, and I don't. Nor do I pretend that all of us being together doesn't fill me with joy. I understand that joy is inappropriate these days and still, we feel what we feel. 

Page 33:  When I asked what was wrong she said nothing in the same voice one would say go fuck yourself. 

Page 152:  I drop beneath the surface and open my eyes. It's as if someone bought up all the diamonds at Tiffany's and crushed them into dust, then spread that dust across the water so that it sifts down evenly, filtering through the shards of light that cut into the depth. 

Page 253:  The rage dissipates along with the love, and all we're left with is a story. 

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt, is full of memorable characters. The industrious and practical Tova feels steadfast and is easy to root for. Cameron is flawed yet forgivable, and Marcellus the Octopus is the wise one. The story, a ponderance on loneliness and purpose, is well-crafted and its ending wraps up like a hug. A satisfying read. Some quotes: 

Page 9:  Tova has always felt more than a bit of empathy for the sharks, with their never-ending laps around the tank. She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe. 

Page 81:  Now, Tova comes here to be alone with her thoughts, when she needs a break from being alone in her house. When even the television can't punch through the unbearable quiet. 

Page 167:  The smile on Tova's face hangs there, for a long moment, like it's unsure whether to fall off or not. 

Page 184:  But I have knowledge. To the extent that happiness is possible for a creature like me, it lies in knowledge. 

Northwest Angle

I am reading William Kent Krueger's murder mystery series set in Minnesota, sprinkling them amongst my other reads, and just finished the 11th, Northwest Angle. They tend to be fast and absorbing, and I rarely keep many quotes, but I enjoy them. Northwest Angle did not disappoint. 

Page 76:  The moon was directly above them, and they walked in puddles of their own shadows. 

Black Cake

The secret family history in Charmaine Wilkerson's Black Cake is intriguing. It did take me a while to get through. Sometimes chapters were a little too brief, barely a snapshot. I picked up this book because my second book begins with the death of a mother and her estranged adult siblings forced to interact. Some complex relationships. A friend suggested it might be a good comp title for me. But that was the extent of the similarities. 

I liked how one's surroundings - like the sea, like food - becomes the connector to identity. Glad to have read it. I always do love a good tale. 

Page 70:  While Benny's mother stood leaning against her kitchen counter in California, a blood clot quietly inching its way up from her pelvis to her lungs, Benny was still back in New York, getting fired from her afternoon job and boarding the wrong bus and finding herself standing in front of the kind of coffee shop that she wanted to have for herself. The cafe, with its too-early Christmas decorations, stood next to a small bookshop in a neighborhood that hadn't yet had the stuffing gentrified out of it. 

Page 140:  She'd grown up hearing that her parents' upbringing had not been as easy as hers, so she hadn't insisted on knowing more. Well, she finally has a chance, now, and the thought of it scares her. Benny feels like the more she knows about her mother, the more of her she will lose. 

Page 153:  "Everything is connected to everything else, if you only go far enough back in time." 

Page 199:  Eleanor wanted to run after the car, shout to Byron, call him back, explain to him that no, raising him and his baby sister was not the most important thing that she had ever done. What defined Eleanor most was not what, or whom, she had held close but what she had allowed herself to let go of. 

A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being was Multnomah County Library's selection for their Everybody Reads program of 2023. Sometime in January, my cousin invited me and gave me a copy. I attended Ruth's author talk mid-March in Portland and have only now finished reading the book. I can't adequately explain my slowness. It is long, but more than that, it is steeped in complex issues of memory and philosophy and quantum physics and parallel worlds. It hits all the major social issues as well, from environment and climate to bullying and suicide. The book follows a writer (Ruth's own self!) and her discovery of a packet of interesting items on the Pacific coast, likely having floated over from Japan, perhaps as a result of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The book alternates between the diary of a teen girl and Ruth's life, which somehow becomes a dialogue over space and time. The interaction between Ruth and her husband as they read the diary is beautiful and probing. There are some pretty heady conversations around being, observing, knowing, and conjuring. It's a wonderful book. Writing is Ruth Ozeki's superpower, and from reading this story, it's clearly not her only one. 

Some interesting quotes: 

Page12:  Print is predictable and impersonal, conveying information in a mechanical transaction with the reader's eye. Handwriting, by contrast, resists the eye, reveals its meaning slowly, and is as intimate as skin. 

Page 31:  Ruth snapped the book shut and closed her eyes for good measure to keep herself from cheating and reading the final sentence, but the question lingered, floating like a retinal burn in the darkness of her mind: What happens in the end? 

Page 84:  An unfinished book, left unattended, turns feral, and she would need all her focus, will, and ruthless determination to tame it again. 

Page 159:  Dad kept climbing. One step. Another. Higher and higher. We were an army of two, him and me, marching up a mountain, but not to conquer it. We were in retreat, a defeated army on the run. 

Page 188:  He held out an oyster. His fingers were wet and raw. 

Page 246:  "Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories." 

Page 317:  I unscrew the cap on my fountain pen, worried that the ink might run dry and be insufficient for my thoughts. My last thoughts, measured out in drops of ink. 

Page 345-6:  "Think about it. Where do words come from? They come from the dead. We inherit them. Borrow them. Use them for a time to bring the dead to life." 

Page 389:  He's stopped reading The Great Minds of Western Philosophy completely, and spends all his time programming, which really is his superpower. I mean there are lots of superheroes with different superpowers, and some of them are big and flashy, like superstrength, and superspeed, and molecular restructuring, and force fields. But these abilities are really not so different from the superpower stuff that old Jiko could do, like moving superslow, or reading people's minds, or appearing in doorways, or making people feel okay about themselves just by being there. 

Pachinko

Such an absorbing saga! Pachinko follows an extended family from occupied Korea in 1910 to Japan in 1989, where even those born there were not considered citizens and had South Korean passports - essentially leaving them a foreigner in every land. Author Min Jin Lee deftly navigates the human condition and all its complexity. I know that's quite a statement, but I stand by it. It's haunting me even now, recalling her poignant dealing of such universal issues as limited opportunities based on deep cultural bias, how our choices can be what ruins our lives but in some ways also results in our greatest joy, the way guilt and blame can devastate, how resilient people can be, in spite of it all. I loved the conversations between characters hashing out different perspectives, without being preachy or absolute. I could go on and on, because she tucked so much nuance into every corner.

Personally, I felt connected in that I lived in Japan for a year in 1989/90, teaching English after I graduated high school. I remember being aware that Koreans were second-class citizens but not having any real grasp of the issue. I also never went to a pachinko parlor there. I chose this book because the author will be speaking at a writer convention I'm attending next week. Good book. Hai. Soo desu, nee? Dozo.

Page 54:  "You're too healthy to be in bed," the pharmacist said. "But don't get up just yet."

Page 117:  Sins couldn't be laundered by good results. 

Page 178:  For every patriot fighting for a free Korea, or for any unlucky Korean bastard fighting on behalf of Japan, there were ten thousand compatriots on the ground and elsewhere who were just trying to eat. In the end, your belly was your emperor. 

Page 248:  At lunchtime, Haruki sat at the end of the long table with two seat gaps around him like an invisible parenthesis while the other boys in their dark woolen uniforms stuck together like a tight row of black corn kernels. 

The chapter on pages 279-284, showing those young adult time of discovery and how a person can be challenged to a richer, fuller understanding by being confronted by different perspectives. 

Page 296-7:  His Presbyterian minister father had believed in a divine design and Mozasu believed that life was like this game where the player could adjust the dials yet also expect the uncertainty of factors he couldn't control. He understood why his customers wanted to play something that looked fixed but which also left room for randomness and hope. 

Page 399: Etsuko held the watch case in her hands and wondered how they'd stayed together with him not giving up and her not giving in. 

The chapter on pages 416-422, showing the fraught and complicated relationship of mother and child,. How we hurt those we love the most. 

Page 478:  Phoebe's shoes were black or brown leather; a pair of pink espadrilles, which had once given her terrible blisters, stood out from the others like a girlish mistake. 

The Music of Bees

How fun to read a book set in my little corner of the world! Eileen Garvin's The Music of Bees is a lovely, well-woven story of a convergence of three lonely lives. 

Two quotes jumped out: 

Page 22:  The sunburned tourists who plodded through downtown clutching iced coffees had no idea that the heart of this place was far from Oak Street, up the valley, and out in the orchards. Those long rows of trees were far more than a postcard backdrop for their scenic drives. 

Page 63:  The wind banged around the house all night like it was looking for something it had lost. 

This Side of Paradise

It's fun and easy to pull quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. The main character, Amory, is a youthful idealist and romantic, searching for purpose and meaning. He explores the difference between personality and personage, love and disappointment, personal demons, even hitting political themes, ultimately coming to terms with disillusionment. 

I picked up this book because I had Fitzgerald's quote, "They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered," up on the wall and my daughter one day asked which book of his it was from. I had assumed that quote was about lovers, but it turns out it was about a mentoring friendship between a boy and a worldly old priest. 

The quotes I chose range from lovely turns of phrase to clever or soulful observations (as is always why I keep a quote). 

Page 15:  She had once been a Catholic, but discovering that priests were infinitely more attentive when she was in process of losing or regaining faith in Mother Church, she maintained an enchantingly wavering attitude. 

Page 18:  The invitation to Miss Myra St Claire's bobbing party spent the morning in his coat pocket, where it had an intense physical affair with a dusty piece of peanut brittle. 

Page 36:  They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered. 

Page 75:  Scurrying back to Minneapolis to see a girl he had known as a child seemed the interesting and romantic thing to do, so without compunction he wired his mother not to expect him... sat in the train and thought about himself for thirty-six hours. 

Page 88:  Silences were becoming more frequent and more delicious. 

Page 106:  'I'm a cynic idealist.' He paused and wondered if that meant anything. 

Page 117:  He lay awake in the darkness and wondered how much he cared - how much of his sudden unhappiness was hurt vanity - whether he was, after all, temperamentally unfitted for romance. 

Page 221:  'It may be an insane love affair,' she told her mother, 'but it's not inane.'  

Page 249:  There seemed suddenly to be much left in life, if only this revival of old interests did not mean that he was backing away from it again - backing away from life itself. 

Page 250:  Existence had settled into an ambitionless normality. 

 

Page 274:  Often they swam and as Amory floated lazily in the water he shut his mind to all thoughts except those of happy soap-bubble lands where the sun splattered through wind-drunk trees. 

Page 308:  Suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire to let himself go to the devil - not to go violently as a gentleman should, but to sink safely and sensuously out of sight. 

In other news, my novel, The Runestone's Promise, was listed as a bestseller for 2022 of those published by Unsolicited Press. Thanks to everyone who bought my book! (And if you haven't, you still can! Here's a link: The Runestone’s Promise by Mari Matthias) 

The Candy House

Oh my, this book. This author. Part of me is put off because there is so much going on, that it takes work to track all the characters. Oh, but Jennifer Egan is such an excellent writer! The Candy House is a brilliant and absorbing tale. Again, much like A Visit from the Good Squad, it is akin to a collection of short stories in which a minor character in one assumes the primary voice in another. These people are so real and relatable in their search for authenticity, for connection and meaning, for identity. The pull to conform versus the wish to be unique. What we give up in exchange. 

Choosing quotes was difficult, as every other sentence was worth keeping. I decided to not think too hard about it: 

Page 22:  Had there been a clue Bix had missed, when he said goodbye, of what would happen next? He felt the mystery of his own unconscious like a whale looming invisibly beneath a tiny swimmer. If he couldn't search or retrieve or view his own past, then it wasn't really his. It was lost. 

Page 50:  Holding my phone, looking out at twinkling Lake Michigan, I understood with sudden clarity that doing the right thing--being right--gets you nothing in this world. It's the sinners everyone loves: the flailers, the scramblers, the bumblers. There was nothing sexy about getting it right the first time. 

Page 54:  My family and work--so long the crux of everything I did--became thin topsoil over a deep, bitter root system where my real life took place. Once I'd entered that system, it was all I cared about. 

Page 86:  Consciousness is like the cosmos multiplied by the number of people alive in the world (assuming that consciousness dies when we do, and it may not) because each of our minds is a cosmos of its own: unknowable, even to ourselves. 

Page 97:  Not that it matters; it's all just retroactive math. The random walk of a drunk is of geometric interest, but it can't predict where he'll stagger next. 

Page 125:  Never trust a candy house! It was only a matter of time before someone made them pay for what they thought they were getting for free. Why could nobody see this? 

Page 152:  But friendship risks the end of friendship, and Roxy has moved through too many friends in her life. 

Page 298-9:  The only route to relevance at our age is through tongue-in-cheek nostalgia, but that is not--let me be very clear--our ultimate ambition. Tongue-in-cheek nostalgia is merely the portal, the candy house, if you will, through which we hope to lure in a new generation and bewitch them. 

Page 322:  Snow swarmed like honeybees in the golden glow of the old-fashioned streetlamps; it slathered tree trunks and sparkled like crushed diamonds at his feet. 

Page 326:  One horror of motherhood lies in the moments when she can see both the exquisiteness of her child and his utter inconsequence to others. 

Page 333:  But knowing everything is too much like knowing nothing; without a story, it's all just information.