I’ve read novels, widely praised, by contemporary authors whose prose seems watery next to the lexical richness of ""If I Survive You".
Five Poems from Rose
Jesus bird Walks the way the moonlight Walks on the bayous, Pantanal ol’en sea.
Braces
To describe the first days after he got his braces as dreadful was a gross understatement. The discomfort his dentist had cautioned him of turned out to be excruciating pain. He was constantly famished, but the bland, watery congee and foul-smelling soups prepared by his mother made him lose his appetite. He stopped talking to her, citing pain as pretext. Instead of spending time with his parents in the living room as he usually did, he retreated to his room, brooding.
Why I Write
Because you exist. Because writing allows me to discover myself, even parts of me that had previously lay hidden, dormant, that I had never before known existed.
The Better Angels – Novel Excerpt
If, in the annals of our town of Lacana's folklore, the archangels Michael and Lucifer settled the whole matter of the apocalypse in town, it would be said thus; that they tucked their rusted iron-tipped wings behind the backs of two time-splintered oak chairs and fought for the souls of seven drunks and two anonymous alcoholics who’d steeled themselves against the drink but not the company.