asperity.

She walks home in a daze, thinking of the last thing Olivia said to her. “Gifts are fragile. You must never entrust yours to people who might break it.” She doesn’t say who she might be thinking of, and Barbara doesn’t need her to. She has what she needs and doesn’t expect to return to the Harris house again.

Never answer a suspect’s questions, Bill used to say. They answer yours.

James Dickey to start with. You know his poems, and there’s a famous novel, Deliverance—” “I saw the movie. Men going down a river in canoes.” “Yes, but don’t read that one. Read To the White Sea. Lesser known, but I think better. For your purposes. I want you to read at least one Cormac McCarthy novel, All the Pretty Horses or Suttree. Will you do

Microwaving kills most nutrients, it’s a known fact. No wonder so many Americans are so unhealthy; that kind of cooking should be banned by law.

Did you know the human liver contains all nine essential amino acids?

Em pretends to cover her ears. “I pay no attention to what writers say about their work. It’s what the work says about the writer that matters.”

“What’s the name of the loser boyfriend?” “Tom Higgins.” She wrinkles her nose. “He worked at the shoe store out at the Airport Mall.

“Well, it ain’t his folks paying your bills, I don’t have to be a detective to know that.” Althea puts her hands behind her head and stretches, jutting out a truly mammoth bosom that shades half her desk.