You Learn Not To Mourn Every Little

Fbi Girl Is A Gorgeous, Sumptuous Book. Conlon-mcivor Takes A Subject (herself And Her Family) That Might Have Sunk In Other Hands, Beats Egg White Under Her Words And The Whole Thing Rises Like A Dream. It's A Love Story For Her People And For A Time And Place. Read It.

The Land Itself, Of Course, Was Careless Of Its Name. It Still Is. You Can Call It What You Like, Fight All The Wars You Want In Its Name. Change Its Name Altogether If You Like. The Land Is Still Unblinking Under The African Sky. It Will Absorb White Man's Blood And The Blood Of African Men, It Will Absorb Blood From Slaughtered Cattle And The Blood From A Woman's Birthing With Equal Thirst. It Doesn't Care.

Once, I Discovered The Skulls Of Two Impala Rams, Their Horns Locked Into An Irreversible Figure-of-eight; The Two Animals Had Been Trapped In Combat, Latched To Each Other During The Battle Of The Rut. The Harder They Had Pulled To Escape From Each Other, The More Intractably Stuck They Were, Until They Had Fallen Exhausted, To Their Knees, In An Embrace Of Hatred That Had Killed Them Both.

I Am Becoming Increasingly Difficult To Please As A Reader, But I Adore Being Surprised By A Really Wonderful Book, Written By Someone I've Never Heard Of Before.

There's A Point At Which Writing A Book, Or A Long Article, Begins To Feel Like Mental Labor, And It's Too Painful To Connect In The World In Any Real Way Mid-process. The Only Way To Survive Is To Write Until It Is All Said And Done.