Annette Valentine > Quotes

“With no more than enough money to ride the streetcar home, I closed the door and was out of the speakeasy into the alley on a day not yet light, hoping to resurrect the farm boy that had grown up with country-loving decency.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“Tomorrow morning the mindless noise in my head was going to resume, which meant facing the glaring reality that law enforcement wasn't suicide but came mighty close.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“I inhaled deeply and felt the smoke pass slowly from my nostrils. Lies, like thick, warm, invisible syrup, must've secretly coated Alan's situation with a soothing, sweet, and delicate aroma. It had hardened, making him a victim-immobile, trapped-looking out through a thick, unbendable lens to a distorted world beyond.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“For an impotent few seconds, I felt like an actor standing speechless on the stage, unable to adjust the urgent part of me that wanted only my father and his strength. Time and distance had not diminished the need.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“Swallowed by the vast and practically empty lobby, I wandered over to the window and looked out at the Grand Circus Park through the lens of a September morning's first hour. Across the way, the newly completed Metropolitan Building pierced the Detroit skyline, and lights twinkled in the many competing tall buildings.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“It had been approaching midnight. I'd been hanging out longer than I'd planned when a 1928 Lincoln Model L-swanky by any definition-pulled in near the club's entrance and double-parked alongside the string of other black vehicles. Two heavily garbed figures emerged, one with a cigar implanted between his teeth. Fat lips forced it to the side of his mouth. Someone came out of the club, and the three of them moved into the shadows.”
― Annette Valentine

“I could be wrong, but I don't believe whatever held him could possibly have satisfied his yearning. Depravity's an addiction.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“I flung the pages of the letter into the air and watched them flutter aimlessly to the floor, and dad's make-believe hopes with them. I went to the washstand, poured every drop of cold water into the bowl, and glared at the man in the mirror, wanting to growl at the resemblance to my father. I let my hands soak, drowning what was possible to drown, than dried them and changed my clothes, put on a tie, and brushed my hair till my head hurt. When I walked out the door to go down for dinner, I looked like a new man. Cottage pie sounded terrific.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“The shameful sensation was still lodged in my brain when I awakened. That and the urge to get up and slither out of the mess I'd let Detroit's nightlife make of me.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“But it was not business as usual. Black Friday was a household word. The industrialized world spiraled downward as billions of dollars were lost in its wake, and Albuquerque was no exception. In the coming months, the Great Depression stretched its tentacles over all of America, snatching away whatever hopes to lay in its path.”
― Annette Valentine

“If Miss Nameless minded, she wasn't letting on. And if her name was really Frances, I didn't find out. The evening went a different direction from there. The music was still going like notes from a faraway horn, and her hands were all over me. That's what I remembered.

Light shone through the gap in the curtain, through which people came and went - night after cheap, careless night, most likely - to the room on the other side.

In the end, I was back there, alone.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel

“The city, after four years, had unceremoniously dropped me back at the Statler Hotel and left me feeling completely alone. It was too early to be here and too late to be awake, standing in this place, berating myself for something I couldn't change. I didn't want to count the cost of false pursuits- not for running, not for never scraping off the lies that guilt had used to hold me captive.”
― Annette Valentine

“The Riviera Theatre was not my concern tonight. The Detroit River was. As a hotspot for Canada's legal alcohol coming across, rum-running was rampant. Hoodlums brought a load of hooch across and had shown up armed to the teeth. No doubt, they were wise to the fact that they were up against Detroit's underworld led by immigrants from the lower east side. None other than the Bornstein family.”
― Annette Valentine, Eastbound from Flagstaff: A Novel