We all know to feel sympathy for those who've suffered from drug addiction, child abuse, and terminal illness, so the set up elicits an emotional response that the story itself very well may not earn. Energy generated by the fiction itself is likely to produce more light.
Anthony MarraThere is something miraculous in the way the years wash away your evidence, first you, then your friends and family, then the descendants who remember your face, until you arenโt even a memory, youโre only carbon, no greater than your atoms, and time will divide them as well.
Anthony MarraFor their entire lives, even before they met you, your mother and father held their love for you inside their hearts like an acorn holds an oak tree.
Anthony Marra