She stood there, on the stoop. Her beautiful blue eyes lit up, hopeful, like two perfect oceans of possibility and life. Her eyes had been everything to him. Innocence, love, hope, perfection.
They had tailed Emerson and Gilley from Dr. Carter’s in New York, down to D.C. After that, they had to duck under the cover of a Miami airport newsstand to avoid them. Bought a Post and a magazine. A quick outfit change at a tourist shop next door, then hustled to the other side of the terminal. Booked a charter down to Rio via Havana.
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.
benjamin j kirby 