There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.

It is sort of weird being honored for the worst day of your life.

The Kessler Theater is one such gem, an Art Deco beauty … for a slice of real life, there’s always the Kessler.

The strange, wonderful stories of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain introduce us to the tremendously gifted Kirsten Menger-Anderson, a writer whose subject is nothing less than the diagnosis and cure of the human malady. We follow twelve generations of New York City's Steenwycks family through their forays into phrenology, mesmerism, radium therapy and similar misadventures, a historically rich narrative that Menger-Anderson delivers in striking, elegant prose and with a sure eye for detail. This is a remarkable debut by a writer to watch.

There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one.

I thought when I started writing that I'd have a book out in four or five years, and as it became apparent that that wasn't going to happen, I became increasingly frustrated and unsure of myself.

A person deprived of beauty and pleasure puts me in mind of the Haitian notion of a zombie - a person disconnected from his or her soul, a person who works for others' profit but never his own, a person who mindlessly does the bidding of the boss and exists in an emotional and mental limbo.