Jed Perl writes precisely and ecstatically. Antoine' s Alphabet is a history and a fairy tale, a work of criticism, and a work of art.

I didn't intend to write about totems or people searching. I tried not to constrain myself, and this is what I ended up with. There's this great Auden quote: "I look at what I write so I can see what I think."

She brushed her eyelashes against his chest.

Years were passing through the spaces between moments.

It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.

There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So I buried them, and let them hurt me.

Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written.