The Doorman: A Novel

Julian felt himself becoming irrelevant. Irrelevant to his wife, who barely noticed him, a relationship that consisted largely of coordinating logistics, as if they were cordial colleagues whose fortunes were tied together on the success or failure of executing clearly demarcated responsibilities on the Sonnenberg account.

Sometimes the whole setup didn’t look like financial aid so much as financial entrapment.

Because being immensely wealthy would make her happy, wouldn’t it? It would make anyone happy, that’s the promise of America,

If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. —GEORGE ORWELL

Evolution isn’t always the same as improvement.

People tossed around anti-racism like a grenade, which they then counterattacked with machine-gun-fire accusations of Critical Race Theory.

Emily had tried many different sleep aids. All of them, really, except narcotics. NyQuil, melatonin, THC, Ativan, Lunesta, et cetera. Each worked, incrementally, briefly, until it didn’t. Her problems could not be solved by pharmaceuticals.

These bodies are temperamental machines, prone to constant breakdown, requiring outrageous levels of maintenance and repair, the doctors and dentists, the exercise, all the damn food—a constant supply of fuel in one end and waste out the other, every few hours for a lifetime, a full third of which is spent powered down. These machines were designed

Hudson referred to diarrhea—a word he did not know—as poop juice, which was that special combination of disgusting with brilliant that Emily thought was the superpower of six-year-olds.