The man who recommended the book had the unfortunate responsibility of being in the room when we discussed it. I respected that. A weaker man would have developed a cough,…
The application required an emergency contact, which seemed presumptuous for a job that paid eighteen dollars an hour. I put down my brother’s name, but then I remembered we hadn’t…
Let me tell you about the time I got promoted at Denny’s for being a lunatic. I was twenty-seven, working graveyard shifts in Santa Barbara, wearing a uniform that smelled…
The woman in the painting was waiting for me. I wasn’t going through anything when I read Rose Madder. No tragic breakup, no existential meltdown, no inner child clawing its…