Sign in with Facebook
“Romance languages eluded me both generally and specifically; nothing was as cryptic and ripe for misunderstanding as the physical language of a boy’s love. What was an involuntary grimace I took to be rapture. What was a simple natural masculine compulsion to be in, to tunnel and thrust, I saw as a tender desire to be sweetly engulfed and at least momentarily overpowered by another’s devoted attentions. What was an urgent, automatic back-and-forth of the body I thought of as the eternal romantic return of the lover. Kissing was not animal appetite but the heart flying up to the lips and speaking its unique attraction and deep eternal fondnesses in the only way it could. The juddering of climax, as involuntary as a death rattle, I took to be a statement of hopeless attachment. Why, I don’t know. I didn’t think of myself as sentimental. I thought of myself as spiritually alert.
Uh-oh, as Mary-Emma would say.
“Are you a virgin?” he had asked.
“Yes,” I said. That he couldn’t tell already, that it wasn’t spelled out all over my face and demeanor, thrilled me. To be funny, I rolled my head with a harlot’s abandon and purred, “I am.” I fell back, the way a cooked onion slid apart, in all its layers, when bit.
Later I would come to believe that erotic ties were all a spell, a temporary psychosis, even a kind of violence, or at least they coexisted with these states. I noted that criminals as well as the insane tended to give off a palpable, vibrating allure, a kind of animal magnetism that kept them loved by someone. How else could they survive at all? Someone had to hide them from the authorities! Hence the necessity and prevalence of sex appeal for people who were wild and on the edge.”
― A Gate at the Stairs
Uh-oh, as Mary-Emma would say.
“Are you a virgin?” he had asked.
“Yes,” I said. That he couldn’t tell already, that it wasn’t spelled out all over my face and demeanor, thrilled me. To be funny, I rolled my head with a harlot’s abandon and purred, “I am.” I fell back, the way a cooked onion slid apart, in all its layers, when bit.
Later I would come to believe that erotic ties were all a spell, a temporary psychosis, even a kind of violence, or at least they coexisted with these states. I noted that criminals as well as the insane tended to give off a palpable, vibrating allure, a kind of animal magnetism that kept them loved by someone. How else could they survive at all? Someone had to hide them from the authorities! Hence the necessity and prevalence of sex appeal for people who were wild and on the edge.”
― A Gate at the Stairs
“I need the preacher to stop by here and conversate a little. I need him to say daft and holy things and fix his face into a compassionate mask. He will be tedious and lulling and the rhythm of my breaths will be returned to steadiness. He will seek to brighten and disperse the shadows in my heart and his attempts will amuse me and summon admiration though not much else. I have no confession plans. Still, I remain vainly interested in heaven.
Yours down here still.
Eliz.”
― I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
Yours down here still.
Eliz.”
― I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
“They knew what he meant, all three of them. They were satisfied that nobody had screwed over him. They knew that even though he was barely twenty years old, Deke understood the world and knew how to live in it.
The band returned to the low stage in front, two middle-aged guitarists with their bellies hanging heavily over gaudy belt buckles and a skinny, balding drummer in his early sixties, all of them wearing matching purple cowboy shirts with pink fringes across their chests and along the backs of their arms.
They started the music again, and Claudel drifted back into his troubles, when all at once, as if entering a room he hadn’t known existed, he realized that while he had been listening to Deke’s story and thinking about it and while he had been watching the youth and attempting to understand him, he hadn’t thought about himself once. Claudel had let young Deke become the center of his thoughts for a few minutes, and his mind and his heart now felt strangely refreshed for it. It was a feeling he couldn’t remember having experienced before. Certainly not since Vietnam. A coherence had momentarily come over his life, and he understood it, knew where it had come from, which gave him a feeling of wholeness he hadn’t even imagined possible before.”
― Trailerpark
The band returned to the low stage in front, two middle-aged guitarists with their bellies hanging heavily over gaudy belt buckles and a skinny, balding drummer in his early sixties, all of them wearing matching purple cowboy shirts with pink fringes across their chests and along the backs of their arms.
They started the music again, and Claudel drifted back into his troubles, when all at once, as if entering a room he hadn’t known existed, he realized that while he had been listening to Deke’s story and thinking about it and while he had been watching the youth and attempting to understand him, he hadn’t thought about himself once. Claudel had let young Deke become the center of his thoughts for a few minutes, and his mind and his heart now felt strangely refreshed for it. It was a feeling he couldn’t remember having experienced before. Certainly not since Vietnam. A coherence had momentarily come over his life, and he understood it, knew where it had come from, which gave him a feeling of wholeness he hadn’t even imagined possible before.”
― Trailerpark
“My grandmother, when asked once at her ninetieth birthday party what words of advice she would offer young people, given her particular perspective at the end of life, had at first simply scrunched up her face and said irritably, deafly, “What?” But she was just buying time. And when the question was restated she looked around at her whole family, the kids and grandkids, and said loudly, “Don’t get married!” We were stunned. It was if she had said, “Shoot to kill.” It was if she had said, “If you just shoot to wound, they get up and come at you again.” I used to think that those essentially happy and romantic novels that ended with a wedding were all wrong, that they had left out the most interesting part of the story. But now I’d gone back to thinking, no, the wedding was the end. It was the end of the comedy. That’s how you knew it was a comedy. The end of comedy was the beginning of all else.”
― A Gate at the Stairs
― A Gate at the Stairs
“Summoned by the head nod of a priest who never stopped smiling in a gentle, divine, ace-up-his-sleeve way, Finn now stood mechanically and went to the front of the church. He cleared his throat as if he were in a school play. At least there was no PowerPoint. From the front of the sanctuary he read some psalm or other that sounded like an unconsoling battle cry. Yet just the doing of something, anything, ceremonial in nature mildly soothed him.
Then Finn closed the good book. He spoke of brotherhood, its failings and its tendernesses. He spoke of how Max had been arbitrarily ostracized and taunted and shoved around as a boy, and how Finn, three years younger, had watched it from a distant corner of a hallway or the school yard, in fear and embarrassment, and pretended he didn’t even know Max. Finn, a coward, had kept his gaze down, receded, turned his back on Max repeatedly. Perhaps to spare Max the humiliation of knowing his little brother could see all this? But no: it was Finn’s own craven vulnerability, shameful shame. He was in countless ways unworthy of Max and his beautiful stoicism. Max’s self-designed cool life management system was unpatentable. Max’s devotion to the whole enterprise of living even when it didn’t meet him halfway. Max’s refusal to whine. Max’s bursts of compassion for others when he should have, could have, saved all his reserves of compassion for himself. Max suffered terribly but calmly and with complicated knowledge. He was a beautiful brother and although perhaps there were many things the two of them should have said and didn’t, should have done but didn’t, probably that was the case between all people. He had not been at Max’s deathbed. And yet he felt in a way that he had been. He had felt Max depart at his very moment of departure. The mind-meld of brothers had kept them connected. Sometimes when people died it was the vanishing that was so hard. But Max had not really vanished. That would be impossible. There was a growing slur in Finn’s words as if he were drunk or deaf or having a mild stroke. He looked out at the congregation and saw some worried faces. He knew then that he sounded insane to absolutely everyone.”
― I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
Then Finn closed the good book. He spoke of brotherhood, its failings and its tendernesses. He spoke of how Max had been arbitrarily ostracized and taunted and shoved around as a boy, and how Finn, three years younger, had watched it from a distant corner of a hallway or the school yard, in fear and embarrassment, and pretended he didn’t even know Max. Finn, a coward, had kept his gaze down, receded, turned his back on Max repeatedly. Perhaps to spare Max the humiliation of knowing his little brother could see all this? But no: it was Finn’s own craven vulnerability, shameful shame. He was in countless ways unworthy of Max and his beautiful stoicism. Max’s self-designed cool life management system was unpatentable. Max’s devotion to the whole enterprise of living even when it didn’t meet him halfway. Max’s refusal to whine. Max’s bursts of compassion for others when he should have, could have, saved all his reserves of compassion for himself. Max suffered terribly but calmly and with complicated knowledge. He was a beautiful brother and although perhaps there were many things the two of them should have said and didn’t, should have done but didn’t, probably that was the case between all people. He had not been at Max’s deathbed. And yet he felt in a way that he had been. He had felt Max depart at his very moment of departure. The mind-meld of brothers had kept them connected. Sometimes when people died it was the vanishing that was so hard. But Max had not really vanished. That would be impossible. There was a growing slur in Finn’s words as if he were drunk or deaf or having a mild stroke. He looked out at the congregation and saw some worried faces. He knew then that he sounded insane to absolutely everyone.”
― I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home
Lycoming County Book Lovers
— 11 members
— last activity Oct 25, 2025 07:36AM
Group for book discussion and exchange in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and Lycoming County. Let's share some of our favorites and connect with like-mind ...more
Joe’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Joe’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
290 books
|
18 friends
220 books
|
50 friends
665 books
|
20 friends
93 books
|
26 friends
384 books
|
33 friends
103 books
|
25 friends
135 books
|
23 friends
170 books
|
8 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Joe
Lists liked by Joe
