What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.”

effluvia

nothing shocked us more than the sight of a black person shopping on Kercheval. We couldn’t help but wonder if certain “improvements” in The Village hadn’t been made to scare black people off. The ghost in the window of the costume shop, for instance, had an awfully pointed, hooded head, and the restaurant, without explanation, took fried chicken

“Obviously, Doctor,” she said, “you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.” * * * The Lisbon girls were thirteen (Cecilia), and fourteen (Lux), and fifteen (Bonnie), and sixteen (Mary), and seventeen (Therese).

“It was the combination of many factors,” Dr. Hornicker said in his last report, written for no medical reason but just because he couldn’t get the girls out of his head. “With most people,” he said, “suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. With the Lisbon girls, the gun was loaded. A bullet for family abuse. A bullet for

Acts like these—simple, humane, conscientious, forgiving—held life together.

And perhaps because of their lack of socializing, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon remembered the party as a successful event.

Self-expression can often be frustrated. More and more, doctors say, this frustration can lead to acts of violence whose reality the adolescent cannot separate from the intended drama.”

“Basically, what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she’d fly.”