Friday, July 17, 2015

Words to Follow


Just finished reading David Shafer's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Loved it. The prose just sings.

Sometimes, if you read the right passage in the right book at the right time, it can floor you.

Like this heartfelt declaration of devotion that kind of comes out of nowhere, and yet feels inevitable at the same time:

"I would like to one day live with you in Rome and bathe our child in an iron tub. Actually, any kind of tub, really. With you, I would always try my hardest - God loves a trier, they say. And I wouldn't lie or hide. I want to feed you and fuck you and ask you what's up and walk with you through whatever searing desert, down any choked street, into what joy and trouble might be ours."

Wow, that's Fantastic.

I was probably softened up for that by the reference to T.S. Eliot that just precedes it:

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." -- T.S. Eliot, East Coker (1940)

AKA gives this one two thumbs way up. Read it before HBO turns it into a half-hour comedy series.