Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
C. While I was still in Paris, I dreamed about my father for the first time in years. And then, through the eeriest of coincidences, I actually saw him, though at no point had I sought him out. It was in the Musée d’Orsay. It was my last day in town. I was standing in Room 20, on the rez-de-chaussée, staring, as my repulsively ill luck would have it, into the pinkish cleft of L’Origine du monde, Courbet’s idealized depiction of a female crotch. Then, as my eyes moved across the surface of the painting to the frame, and as I took a step back, I turned to see, exiting the room, a man I hadn’t noticed previously. It was him, unmistakably him, though we hadn’t spoken in years. He passed through the doorway in a red scarf.
The writing teacher looks up. “Are these different?” he wants to know.
The student’s demeanor hasn’t changed. Maybe she looks surprised, but mostly she looks exactly the same as she looked before.
“What exactly are you trying to get me to tell you?” the writing teacher demands, more frankly than he means to. He’s spoken without much foresight or control.
“I need help. Like I said. I don’t know how the story is supposed to begin.”
“I’m supposed to choose”—he pauses—“on your behalf?”
“Yes.”
“OK. Then I choose red, the last one. How’s that?” The writing teacher realizes he is trembling.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” he parrots.
“No, no,” she reassures him. “I think it’s a great choice! I always think it’s best to choose what you really want.” And here she adds, “Consequences be damned.”
The student reaches across the desk and, producing a pen the writing teacher has not seen before, circles the passage he has chosen. The pen makes a squeaking sound.
Then the student rises from her chair. Taking the paper with her, she exits the writing teacher’s office.