The horses slushed and slopped their way through the washed-out divots of the muddy trail. We were on our way beyond Harper’s Reach, the old, steep stone-faced mountain miles north of Fox Osage. In the distance, towards home, I saw bright lightning crackle to the ground. Still, I jumped at the clap of thunder that followed from the gray sky.
I listened to the sounds of the night. A mockingbird called through the brush, far off, maybe halfway across the lake. The cool wind rustled the tops of the trees and they whispered together. The ker-klack sound of the horses going down the trail past the lake was almost hypnotizing.
Look, it's a John D. MacDonald book, you don't need me to recommend it to you. But just in case: go on, get a copy and read this damn book. The premise of The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything is fairly simple. There's a sort... Continue Reading →
There is just something remarkable about the tiny little house where Roald Dahl did his writing. It's utterly fantastic.
There is no reason in the world for a white person (and particularly a white man) to be anything less than ebullient about the state of affairs in today's America. Donald Trump, a man who has garnered the favor of a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, is President of the United States. The Congress is controlled by Republicans, and its leaders seem hell-bent on rolling back the polices of the last Democratic administration. Republicans also control 32 state legislatures, 33 governors.
Don't get me wrong: Blackbirds is wildly violent, wickedly chaotic, like those old wooden roller-coasters that rip you this way and that, make you call a chiropractor when you wobble off.
Finally, as time begins to catch up with itself, the sound of a wailing siren pierces the distance. Only in that moment might anyone who saw what had happened at the Lucky Dragon Tea & Coffee shop have believed that help was on the way.
But I am also a sucker for Indian food, and particularly butter chicken. So we decided to give this a try.
Toby Burnhouser was bigger than Brick, and he held my right arm down. Toby gritted his gums and breathed hard through his nose. He took his job as one of Jimmy’s henchmen a little too seriously. My right hand started to go numb as Burnhouser pushed down harder into the short-pile race-track play carpet.
