Deep in my re-reads of Patrick White, Thomas Wolfe and John Cowper Powys, I remembered Raymond Carver, the brevity of his writing, aided and abetted by Gordon Lish, his editor; I needed to read something radically edited, writing that stayed close to the bone, as Jane Fonda liked to say of her body.
What do we talk about when we talk about love. We talk about cigarettes and alcohol and our individual histories. We talk in the domestic context. We empty the ashtray. Someone is about to leave or has left. Various splintered families, always in the name of something almost nobody has, something that isn't there when the story ends. And the story ends. Patience gives out. Narrative stasis has been achieved. The next story will echo this one.
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