The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes. I see your eyes glazing over, so I'll hush.

You don't have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness ... has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I'm going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

And when he came to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.

The integrity of my sleep has been forever compromised, sir.

We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

There are secrets within secrets, though--always.