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Where She Goes

I knew it would happen. I thought about it all the time the way any wife with a sick husband does about what it would actually be like when he went. All those nighttime runs to the emergency room, all the phone calls and the drugs and the tubes. What would be the moment? And when he did finally–and finally it was everything that got him, kidneys, heart, lungs all of it–what a relief. Not that I was prepared, I wasn’t, how could you be really but it wasn’t a surprise, not at all, no. On the way to the cemetery I was looking out the window, amazed that it had actually happened. I may even have said so out loud which would have been embarrassing if I did. If I did, nobody remarked but who would? read more

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The Choir

The composer came to work with the choir before the concert, just for a few days. It wasn’t common: first of all most composers are dead. Then, how likely a living one (being alive and performed isn’t common either) would be in town and show up? Not very. Of course there are helpful circumstances, such as being in a very large town, or preparing a truly glamorous concert. Or, the choir director being one of the composer’s best friends. All that said, the visit still was exceptional – a miraculous blessing. read more

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LaRose by Louise Erdrich

I have been reading Louise Erdrich for over a decade. She has been writing novels for over three decades. She never lets me down. The new novel, set in familiar territory, the remaining Ojibwe lands of North Dakota, is engaged in spanning: generations, cultures, the spiritual world, and the moral universe. If that sounds deep, it is but her dazzling prose and sophisticated plotting create a novel that is quite impossible to put down. read more

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Not for the Likes of Us

Kurt moved on his belly beneath the briars that formed a rudimentary roof for the hollowed out basin of earth the two men had called home for two nights now, slithering over the lip of the hollow and following the pull of gravity through the dark to where he knew Leo would be. The movement was that of a snake’s, but Kurt knew that he could not be a snake because a snake would have been long gone by now. He thought about what other animals he could be; a loyal mastiff at best, a fuck-witted donkey at worst. read more