




Not a fraud
As the worshipper kneels to pray and the treasure-hunter kneels down to open a hidden drawer, the narrator gathers Flaubert.

Make small talk daily
…to make eye contact with outsiders to broaden our compassion for the human experience



No-nonsense voices
…because her grandmother had “fishy” dreams and nobody else was confessing

Neighborliness
We absorb balance and goodness and look for his look-alike in our neighborhood.





Impractical writing
…how to incorporate gossip…how to avoid sociological treatment and retain a sense of judgment.



Testifying
… joyless and joyful moments in bright rooms overflowing with believers, in two prison cells, in one red Cadillac.

A daughter’s father
…the husband who longs to transform the moon into a pool of water so his waitress-wife can soak her feet…

Born to express
But does he who diagnosed a repressed society in the early 1900s have anything to say to us, we who live by expressing?