Depending on the year or the therapist he was seeing, he'd learned to ascribe just about every facet of his character as a psychological reaction to his parents' fighting: his laziness, his overachieving, his tendency to isolate, his tendency to seduce, his hypochondria, his sense of invulnerability, his self-loathing, his narcissism.

Just like ice, lives crack, too. Personalities. Identities.

I saw the movie, he said. I know what it's about. Listen to this. When girls get to be about twelve or so - he leaned toward us - their tits bleed.

The Pulitzer Prize is an idea; it's a vote of confidence. Like literature, it exists purely in the mind.

Detroit's a great music town. If your interaction with it was mainly musical, I'm sure you have a good opinion of the place.

She had given birth to me and nursed me and brought me up. She had known me before I knew myself and now she had no say in the matter. Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else.

But, like anyone in love, Madeleine believed that her own relationship was different from every other relationship, immune from typical problems.