Ellen Kirby

“The oddness of my encounter with the fox still feels like a portent of some kind, a lingering in the air, like a fog that doesn’t burn away with the midday sun. Ephraim will neither laugh at me nor be alarmed. He will simply nod and think on it, the way he does with most things. If I give him enough time, he might even have an explanation. Some men think in a straight line, like an arrow off the string. They go to logic, to the easy conclusion, and avoid the waterways of the mind. But not Ephraim. His head is all rivers and streams, and with a mind like that a thought could run anywhere.”
― Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

“A flick of a switch reveals a space half homeless-person’s midden, half pharaonic tomb. Talismans everywhere: totems, drawings, and cargo cult, laid out on plywood planks spread across sawhorses.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory