I just read Welcome to My Country, my first experience with Lauren Slater, and now she’s the narrator in my head. Incredible at descriptive phrases in the way that David Foster Wallace is (“The alley was dark as a pocket”) in the sense that it’s the best and most natural metaphorical example you never thought of (“Snow starts, falling from the dry sky like shavings of bone.”) In any case, she’s the narrator in my head now, which is good for the above reason but bad because there’s something deeply frightening about…well…
(A fat, often-catatonic schizophrenic man named Oscar is slugging soda at a pizza place with residents of the group home and Dr. Slater)
“He takes a long stringy bite from a pepperoni piece, slurps up more soda.
‘I hope at least you’re enjoying your banquet, Oscar,’ I say.
Oscar suddenly puts down the crust he is munching. His mustache is clumped with chunks of tomato paste; a stray piece of pepperoni stays stuck to his chin. For a second his eyes focus, and when I turn around I see he’s staring at his reflection in a pane of glass. ‘I’m not,” he whispers. ‘I am not enjoying myself at all. I never have.'”
We’re all so far down in the well.
I guess this everyone-is-in-the-same-pain thing is good for my currently bruised heart (and ego)…although I think champagne would be one better.
I want to write about a particular reunion but for some reason, feel quite wrong doing so here…
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