Sublime

She was a harbinger of the sub rosa, the new world awaiting me in just a few weeks.

Ernest signaled the waiter to replenish the daiquiris. Looking at my littered plate, he gave me a puzzled look. “Why’d you leave the shrimp heads? That’s the best part.” He picked one up and crunched it happily. I crunched one but not happily.

And, like many modern people—modern women, especially—I had catapulted out of my context…The successes [of the writers] gave me hope, of course, yet it was the desperate bits I liked best. I was looking for directions, gathering clues.

The trip was instant education—sufficient, at least, to enable me to tell my story to other generalists like myself.

That Anne should herself be noticed she felt to be astounding, and she’d received Lorna’s first attention with a confused shyness that looked aloof.

Susan Sontag was America’s last great literary star, a flashback to a time when writers could be, more than simply respected or well regarded, famous.

Jo looked at the bar, where she’d worked for a few summers pouring wine and shaking cocktails for the hordes from away, sunburned tourists who’d said her little seaside village was quaint and asked what folks did here in the winter. Well, this is what we do here, she thought. We gain weight and drink too much and get on each other’s nerves.