Sublime

Doris Lessing, flying away from Africa, is like a character from a fable: The Woman Who Gave Up Her Child to Be an Artist. We need fables, parables, myths, because they illustrate, in simple, broad, stark brushstrokes, the moral complexities that rule our lives.

Grace, feeling at that moment she’d exchange an eternity of rest for a tube of lipstick, bit her lips to bring up the blood, and fell into desolation. It was her eighteenth birthday, and all she had at hand was a walk down by the Blackwater with her only two friends, and tea with her peculiar family. Other girls on days like these held parties to w

ruth

lank