Once Love Had Seemed Like Magic. Now

The Thing To Remember About Love Affairs," Says Simone, "is That They Are All Like Having Raccoons In Your Chimney." ... We Have Raccoons Sometimes In Our Chimney," Explains Simone. And Once We Tried To Smoke Them Out. We Lit A Fire, Knowing They Were There, But We Hoped The Smoke Would Cause Them To Scurry Out The Top And Never Come Back. Instead, They Caught On Fire And Came Crashing Down Into Our Living Room, All Charred And In Flames And Running Madly Around Until They Dropped Dead." Simone Swallows Some Wine. "love Affairs Are Like That," She Says. "they Are All Like That.

Perhaps She Drives Men Away. Perhaps, Without Even Being Able To Help Herself, She Just Puts Men Into Her Ill-tempered Car And Drives Them Off: To Quarries, Dumps, Small Anonymous Bodies Of Water.

What Makes Humans Human Is Precisely That They Do Not Know The Future. That Is Why They Do The Fateful And Amusing Things They Do: Who Can Say How Anything Will Turn Out? Therein Lies The Only Hope For Redemption, Discovery, And-let’s Be Frank—fun, Fun, Fun! There Might Be Things People Will Get Away With. And Not Just Motel Towels. There Might Be Great Illicit Loves, Enduring Joy, Faith-shaking Accidents With Farm Machinery. But You Have To Not Know In Order To See What Stories Your Life’s Efforts Bring You. The Mystery Is All.

They Had, Finally, The Only Thing Anyone Really Wants In Life: Someone To Hold Your Hand When You Die.

If One Loves Stories, Then One Would Naturally Love The Story Of The Story. Or The Story Behind The Story, Pick Your Preposition. It Does Seem To Me To Be A Kind Of Animal Impulse Almost, A Mammalian Curiosity. For A Reader To Wonder About The Autobiography In A Fiction May Be Completely Unavoidable And In Fact May Speak To The Success Of A Particular Narrative, Though It May Also Speak To Its Failure.