Patria Barthen

“His voice sounded vaguely grandfather like, as if his brain were crowded with knowledge!”
― Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin

“Decker smiled and shrugged off their laughter. The humour was only barbed if you sat on the outside, and now he was one of them.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“Janet stood and began a wide navigation of turning one hundred and eighty degrees to enter her vehicle, her slow toddles calling to mind a sleepwalking badger. Her weak forearms often came alive to shoo away invisible hindrances, pawing the air with disgruntled choler. Before beginning the climb up the van’s two carpeted steps, the most athletic portion of her adieu, she unceremoniously dropped her cigarette butt to the ground without extinguishing it. I got the feeling she hoped it might roll beneath the vehicle’s gas tank and give her a true Viking burial.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“You can’t let your guard down. If you can control yourself, you can control everyone else.”
― Megan Abbott, Queenpin